


Indistinguishable from Magic

by barrowjane



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Fairy Tales, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-28
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 22:43:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barrowjane/pseuds/barrowjane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an incident investigating a research vessel, the crew of the Enterprise find themselves in a different place and Kirk realizes he may have to follow the rules of this odd, almost fairy-tale world to get them home.<br/>[Written for the 2009 ST:XI BigBang, just moving house from livejournal.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a mirror and of splinters

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 2009 ST:XI big bang, and poster on livejournal then. Please check out the [story's livejournal masterpost](http://barrowjane.livejournal.com/12035.html) for links to art and mix, and copious thanks to those who betaed the thing.

I

a mirror and of splinters

_dashed in a hundred million and more pieces_

\----

The call from Starfleet comes in when Jim is halfway through midshift-meal, listening half-heartedly to the increasing volume of Scotty and Chekov discussing math, with occasional interjections from Sulu. 

At one point, he nearly has to duck when Chekov begins a series of wilder gesticulations. Getting as many of the senior officers to eat together as possible might be a good idea for general team camaraderie, but it was also surprisingly hazardous to his health.

“The Schwarzchild metric is an interesting aspect of pre-warp relativity, but it is still a twentieth–century invention, Scotty.”

“This may be difficult for a tender youth like yourself to grasp, but just because something’s old doesn’t mean it won’t work perfectly well. And you’re just failing to appreciate the simple beauty inherent in Schwarzchild’s work.” Scotty glares at Chekov, who endeavors to look decently innocent while poking at his lunch. Mentally, Jim ticks off a few points in Chekov’s favor for the effort alone. 

“And you should join us in the twenty-third century. It is a nice place. The sandwiches are quite good.” Jim smiles about a mouthful of his own sandwich at Chekov’s comment. The kid’s got his own sense of style, subtle though it sometimes is. 

“And I’m not going to take cheek from the one crew member who can’t even shave yet, thank you.”

Sulu shakes his head, daring another foray into the conversation. “Scotty, I don’t think facial hair’s a sound counter-argument.”

“You’re just taking his side ‘cause you’re bridge neighbors, siding against Engineering. I can understand that, but he’s calling into question one of the founding fathers of relativistic physics. You can’t tell me that you didn’t think fondly about these great men while you were slaving away learning warp calculations and beginning relativistic theory.” Scotty looks Sulu dead on. 

“You can’t tell me this,” he declares, “because you’d be lying.”

“I bet you had pictures of them. I bet you drew hearts around them, and flowers. There was poetry involved. Descriptive adjectives.” Jim says to the remnants of his sandwich as Chekov leans across the table, elbows set and gaze level.

“I think you are still upset I corrected one of your calculations last week in the transporter room. It is not a sign of maturity to hold grudges, Scotty.”

“One of these days, lad, you’re going to mess up your math, and I will throw a bloody party. Balloon animals and clowns, you wait.” Scotty pokes at his own meal, which, in Jim’s opinion, means he is still sore about that incident. Probably more upset that he’d made the mistake at all than the fact that Chekov had corrected him, but still.

“I am not twelve. Unless clowns are bringing vodka, they are not invited to my party.”

Truly, the remarkable thing of it all is that this is hardly the most surreal conversation Jim’s witnessed on the _Enterprise_. It might not even be in the top ten listing, particularly not if he counts that one moon with the psychic flowers, which he would really rather not but probably should.

“Captain’s injunction, Scotty- no clowns on my ship, bearing balloon animals or vodka or otherwise. This applies to you too, Chekov.” 

The other three laugh and nod at him, Scotty throwing him a half-cocked salute. After a moment Jim covers his face with one hand. He might want to take that back. At the least, he can hope that it doesn’t spread too far beyond the mess hall.

Somehow though, he bets the entire crew will know by gamma shift.

“I actually said that,” he mutters, which set off a new round of laughter from the table. 

“I will ask Commander Spock include it in the ship regulations- no clowns by Captain’s orders,” Sulu says.

“A right sound plan, Sulu,” Scotty comments, and Chekov’s still laughing.

“Right. And with that, I’m back to the bridge.” He stands, collects the remnants of his meal, and sets off. It was for camaraderie’s sake, he thinks. The crew needs to see him as a person and not just ‘the Captain.’ 

In the future, Jim hopes he’ll find a slightly more dignified way to build crew morale. 

-

“Captain. I was just about to message you - we’re receiving a transmission from Starfleet command,” Uhura greets him as soon as he enters the bridge, before he’s even had a chance to reach his command chair.

“Flagged?”

“Priority but not private.” Her fingers fly over her console.

“On screen.”

The bridge crew is almost instantly greeted by the sight Admiral Pike, and Jim manages to inject something like decorum into his posture to speak to the man. Pike looks good- he and Jim had a habit of meeting when one or the other was bleeding, it seems, although this is a trait Jim shares with most people. Bones certainly thinks so – and says so, loudly and with an impressive array of colorful language.

He manages to hide his relief that it’s Pike he’s talking to, and not Nogura or any of the other multitude of shifting, faceless Admirals who may never let go of the idea that he’s been jumped up the command chain too quickly, despite his success with the _Enterprise_. Someday, talking with the brass will, hopefully, stop feeling like he’s being called to task for something he really wishes he got away with doing. If he’s going to have to deal with that feeling, it seems unfair he doesn’t get to do whatever it is that got him into trouble in the first place.

“Admiral.”

“Captain Kirk.” Pike smiles at him; hints of pride shining through the expression. It’s a sight better than Pike’s exasperated or frustrated smile, which Jim had normally seen after he’d pulled some particular stunt and was trying to charm his way out of Pike’s ire.

“I’d like to preface this conversation with the fact that the diplomatic incident last mission was not my fault.” Kirk shifts where he stands and throws the Admiral a grin. It’s a shame Bones is on shift in sickbay, since that would have earned him an exasperated sigh at the least. As it was, Spock might have been irritated with him, but he wouldn’t let anyone know.

“Your report said as much, Captain. Commander Spock’s report also said as much, and your second year review is still four months from now, and you haven’t broken the _Enterprise_.”

“In other words, we’re all fantastic people doing a great job.” In truth, he thinks they might have broken the _Enterprise_ a little bit, but Scotty has managed to put her back together each and every time, so it evens out. He smoothes an absentminded hand across the back of his command chair at the thought.

“We’re going to have to divert your current mission for a few days,” Pike continues, holding Jim’s gaze firmly. Pike’s never had a problem meeting Jim’s eyes, after all, even when he was bruised and bleeding on the floor. Unflinching is the word for it, Jim thinks, and it’s a decently admirable quality.

“Something could possibly be important enough to keep us from the exciting diplomatic meeting on Callos III?” Jim crosses his arms over his chest but keeps the easy grin on his face, and there’s next to no tension on the bridge itself. Pike was captain of this ship once, after all, even if he’s an admiral now. He was the captain for most of this crew, and they don't forget something like that.

“That may be. You still have to continue to the diplomatic meeting, Captain.”

“Of course, Admiral. All due haste.”

“Captain.”

“Honest, Admiral. After we deal with your detour, we’ll continue full speed to Callos III.” And they will, because Jim takes this seriously, but that doesn’t mean he has to enjoy the prospect of two full days of diplomatic talks and being shoved into an uncomfortable full dress uniform, with probably Spock or Uhura at his side. Based on past history, the former will give a subtle eyebrow-twitch or tense slightly whenever he makes a political fumble; the latter will save him either by completely taking control of the conversation or by clearing her throat loudly in warning. 

On one particularly memorable occasion, Uhura had kicked him full in the shin, still managing to make it look like she’d stumbled into him. It took a certain amount of skill, to be certain, but his shin had been bruised for two days.

Pike might be holding back a smile; it’s hard to tell. The man’s not exactly reserved but Jim wouldn’t want to play against him in a poker game if the stakes were large. 

“We’ve lost contact with one of our ships, the _USS Reliance_ , after it was sent to investigate the status of a research vessel, the _Kenntnis_. The _Kenntnis_ had failed to make its six month report, and we’re concerned about its current status. At present, you’re the closest Federation vessel to the two ships.”

“What was the _Kenntnis_ researching?” Sub-space transmissions can – and do – get garbled in transit. Not often, but it happens. Two ships dropping off the map tips the entire scenario out the range of possibly-a-coincidence, however.

"They were sent to investigate a planet that readings indicated might have been capable of supporting new settlements. Initial scans, which we did receive, showed no evidence of any sentient life on the planet, though the atmosphere was stable. I'm sending you the scientific reports we did receive from the _Kenntnis_ , before we lost contact with them. Determine the condition of the two ships and report back, offering whatever assistance is required." 

Kirk throws Pike a salute that's a bit too relaxed to be considered strictly professional. "Understood, Admiral."

"I'd tell you to be careful, Kirk, but I don't think you'd listen to the warning. So I'll settle with 'good luck' and hope you won't need to listen to that either." 

"We'll be just fine, Admiral. I mean, I think the early twentieth century had an entire genre of horror films about lost research ships and the doom that befell them, none of those vids were very good."

"I'm certain you'll manage. I’ll look forward to your report, Captain" Pike replies, and cuts the transmission.

There's silence on the bridge for a few seconds before Uhura speaks, working to transfer the received data even as she does. It's an impressive level of multi-tasking. "Captain - normally Lieutenant Sulu would be the one to mention this – but it seems bad form to reference an entire _genre_ of horror films centering on a situation identical to our new mission, right before we embark on it."

Jim sinks down in his chair. "First off, call Sulu and Chekov back to the bridge. Second, they're bad horror films from two centuries ago, Uhura. Have you seen the science-fiction films from two centuries ago?"

"Many of the seminal works are required viewing for seminars on human anthropological history, particularly concerning pre-warp society. I can recall the plots of several of these.” Spock doesn't look up from his PADD as he speaks, scrolling through the data.

This conversation may not be an easy victory for Jim. Even though they haven't been romantically involved for over a year now, Uhura and Spock have remained very capable of creating and maintaining an organized tag-team. Their teamwork is remarkable, and a little bit terrifying.

“I am sure our situation examining the lost scientific research vessel will bear no resemblance to any other situation involving lost research vessels. Ensign, drop us out of warp.”

The ensign complies and the view screen before them fills with the star-speckled darkness of space. They’re in the spaces between systems, far enough away that everything looks distant. The ensign at the helm doesn’t have to do much more than that, however, as the doors to the turbolift slide open as Sulu and Chekov step back onto the bridge. 

“Gentlemen, back to your stations. We’re being diverted on our mission. Spock, specifics for our new destination?”

“The _Kenntnis_ was assigned to research a planet in the Delta-IV system, situated in the mostly unexplored area past Beta Rigel system. We should not be overly delayed, considering our original course heading.”

Jim takes a moment to scroll through the information himself. There’s a decently sized hole in the Federation Star Map between Beta Rigel and the surrounding system. Not an absence, just a widely unexplored area. Should be fun.

“Chekov, our new course heading?”

Chekov is already moving, sliding almost effortlessly into an intense focus. “If we divert from our current position, we will be able to reach Delta-IV in nineteen hours, assuming we keep a speed of warp five.”

Jim nods. “Lay it in and take us out, Sulu.” The two of them nod, nearly in sync with each other, which Jim decides to take as a sign of the overall cohesion of his bridge team and not an indication that they’re slowly becoming part of a hive mind. The darkness in front of them blurs, the stars becoming streaks of white as they smoothly shift into warp. 

-

He calls a meeting in his ready room for the bridge officers once Alpha shift’s over, leaving the bridge in the rush of changing officers. Chekov’s got the conn for this Beta which is good for the kid, even though Chekov’s nearly nineteen now, which means he won’t be able to get away with calling him ‘the kid’ for much longer. Maybe he’ll throw him a party once he hits twenty, a celebration of his escaping being a teenager. Still, he handles command well enough, and there isn’t much that could threaten the ship at warp, anyway, and it’s best to get the information for this mission settled.

He calls up Bones from medical, and brings Uhura, Spock and Sulu in from the bridge. They only have to wait a second for Bones; the doors to his ready room slide open to the sound of his delicately voiced concerns.

“Jim, I do _actually_ have things to do in Sickbay, you realize? An enormous number of charts to go through, which Chapel can’t handle alone, and then there’s the fact that half this crew is going to need new vaccinations soon enough.” 

“Which is fantastic for you, Bones, but we’ve got new marching orders from Starfleet. There’s an unexplored planet and possibly deserted ship involved. Just think of the potentially deadly diseases that could be waiting in store.” Bones stops himself from grimacing, and Jim grins as he connects his PADD to the terminal on the opposite wall of the ready room. Spock catches his eye once the image flickers into life and Jim slides the device over to him.

“Thank you, Captain. From the information Starfleet has sent us, approximately eighteen months ago, the _USS Kenntnis_ was assigned to patrol Delta-IV, a world that demonstrated the capacity for sustaining settlements despite the lack of any preexisting colonies or colony attempts. The _Kenntnis_ reached the planet’s surface without difficulty and sent back favorable monthly reports for the next fourteen months.” Spock flicks through several slides worth of data: an atmospheric readout for the planet, a breakdown of common soil compositions, an overview of local flora and fauna, cross-referenced with genetic markers of known species. The last slide doesn’t make much sense until Spock explains it.

“Over the fourteen months of data the _Kenntnis_ recorded they also reported registering what they describe as a ‘constant energy flicker.’ They attributed it to the unorthodox photosynthesis processes of the local plant species.”

Translation: they had no clue what was causing it and had to attribute it to something. Despite that, it’s an impressive collection, and all that data also makes it a bit too easy to forget that there were people assigned to the _Kenntnis_ , people Starfleet hasn’t heard from for four months. 

The next images change that, as profiles of the crew flash on the screen. As ships go, the _Kenntnis_ is a small vessel, headed by a married pair of scientists. The wife’s captain, the husband’s head botanist and their eight-year-old daughter has her mother’s eyes and her father’s blond hair.

Jim's never thought much about the protocol governing why they don't, generally, have children on a deep-space exploration vessel like the _Enterprise_ , but he's glad of it now. It means he never has to worry about this being them, about someone looking at their pictures on a vid screen and wonder if someone held an eight-year old girl’s hand and told her to be brave.

The _Kenntnis_ could be fine, he knows. But four months without any contact isn’t great odds, particularly not when the _Reliance_ failed to make contact with them.

It’s easier to scroll through the roster of the _Reliance’s_ bridge crew. It’s a Federation ship much like the _Enterprise_ , albeit much smaller and not nearly as fantastic as his girl. 

Jim leans back in his chair, feels it creak as it takes his shifting weight. “We’ll take this as it comes. Priority is establishing contact with the _Reliance_ and assessing any contact they’ve made with the _Kenntnis_. We’ll assist as necessary.” 

The talk continues for a while, and Jim lets it. Despite what people have said about him, he doesn’t’ _always_ need to be the center of attention. There isn’t much else they can do until they reach Delta-IV, and Jim lets the group disperse, giving some of them individual tasks. He sends Scotty the specifications of the two ships, asking him to anticipate what help the _Enterprise_ could provide in case of mechanical failures in either vessel.

Of course, Scotty’s definition of “mechanical failure” has never exactly meshed with anyone else’s, but he ought to get the gist of what Jim’s asking. He’d ask Spock to go over the information from the two vessels and familiarize himself with the ships and their crews, but that’s like asking his first officer to breathe. Spock’s already looking over the data on his PADD, and Jim’s gaze snags on Spock’s figure, on the careful movements of his hands. Jim examines the hints of expression that flits across Spock’s face, reactions he’s still just beginning to learn how to read, and fuck this, he’s leaving. At this point, he’s almost about to think of descriptive adjectives for Spock’s _hands_ and that it’s. Employ evasive maneuvers, retreat, or just abandon ship.

There is a point where even he withdraws. Right now he’s contemplating his first officer, so he's passed that point for a while now, he figures. Measured in units of distance, Jim thinks it might have been light years ago. In units of time, it’s been at least a year now.

He might be ever so slightly pathetic, but he’ll never tell.

Bones sets off to prep sickbay to receive any and all new patients, and Jim follows him. It’s just the start of Beta shift, after all, and he’s got the time to kill. He can draw up a preliminary roster for potential away teams – and he does – but that’s about all he can do at this point. 

Setting down his PADD, Jim spares a moment to watch Bones hustle around the quiet of the sickbay. No one’s injured or recuperating and there aren’t any other medics on shift. It’s a combination of good luck and the relative calm that comes when they’re in deep warp.

“You know, Bones, you should date Chapel. She’d be good for you,” Jim says. Partly to break through the silence of the sickbay and partly because it’ll set Bones off.

“Chapel, Jim? Did you make that decision based on geographic proximity, or did you pick names out of a hat?” He moves through sickbay easily. After almost two years, Jim thinks Bones could probably find his way blindfolded.

“I don’t think I have a hat.”

“I’m sure someone on ship would have obliged you.”

“Well, yes. I’m the Captain. I am often obliged,” he says and folds his arms across his chest.

“You’re often something, Jim, that much is certain.”

“And you’re stalling. Come on, Bones. She could be the love of your life, just waiting to be discovered.” 

“Jim, I already have the love of my life,” Bones says, and once Jim realizes who he’s talking about it’s suddenly so adorable he could be ill. 

Conveniently, he’s in sickbay.

“You can’t take your daughter to the prom, Bones.”

Bones pits his scowl against Jim’s smirk and they come out evenly matched. “Don’t you have incredibly important Captain things to do? Something vital to the safety and integrity of the ship? Somewhere else?”

“Not in Beta shift when I was on duty all of Alpha and most of Gamma shift.” At that, Bones’ scowl manages to defeat the remnants of his smirk, and Jim feels the sinking feeling that preludes a lecture. 

“Stop that. Stop working Gamma shift when you already work Alpha and more of Beta than you should. You don’t get enough sleep as it is and 16-hour shifts are hardly going to help. Besides, I know you do it just to perturb the hell out of the Gamma shift regulars.”

“They enjoy and appreciate my attempts at building camaraderie.”

“They realize they’ve got graveyard shift and they like it that way. They’re anti-social people – high-functioning anti-social people on a starship with a lot of other people, but the psych profiles stand. And you’re trying to get them to smile at you and say hello.” Bones spoke slowly and clearly, as if it would help drive his point home. Jim hasn’t spent much time around small children, thanks to a combination of luck and dedicated effort on his part, but he imagines it’s the sort of voice one uses with the very young or very stupid.

“Well. They don’t have to smile,” he says. Let Bones put him in what category he will. “Besides, you’re dodging and not doing it very well.”

“My girl will hopefully find a nice, kind and respectful boy who worships the ground she walks on. And he’ll stay nice, kind, and respectful, or I’ll kill him.”

“From outer space?” Jim hops up onto one of the empty bio-beds and resists the urge to swing his legs back and forth.

“From outer space, with my mind and a well-aimed hypospray. Or my various criminal connections. And Nurse Chapel and I have a very good, professional, working relationship. Just because you’re incapable of this doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t manage.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Wait a minute, here!” He jumps up of the bed and jogs to catch up with Bones, who’s already moved into his office. “Are you insinuating something, Doctor McCoy?”

“Only that I’m not about to take relationship advice from a man who’s been _pining_ for god knows how long,” Bones says, which is terribly low of him and also unkind, because Jim’s not a twelve-year-old girl, for fuck’s sake.

Jim winces. “ _Et tu,_ Bones? I cannot believe you just said that. You, Bones. My best friend and you betray me like this. And I am not pining. I do not pine. ”

“Yes, Jim. You are by far the manliest of manly men.” Bones scans through his PADD and when he looks up again, Jim can see the smirk he’s hiding, the asshole. “I’d say that you’re about as emotionally mature as my daughter, but that’s an insult to Joanna. She’s much better at letting her intentions known.”

This is a comparison that is pushing it too far, because Jim’s heard of that particular incident. “Didn’t she get into a fistfight with the kid?”

“It’s an acceptable form of flirting. You know, when you’re a young girl. Besides, she won.”

Jim has almost no recollection of ever starting a relationship with someone by antagonizing them into it. Honest.

“I am not flirting - ”

“You play chess together twice a week. It’s been your biweekly date night for over a year. You spend more time with him - ”

“He’s my first officer! Job requirements dictate we spend time together,” Jim protests, and Bones ignores him, continuing as if Jim hadn’t spoken anything.

“- more time with him than you do with any of the other crew, except for me, and that’s more to do with my innate ability to tolerate your nonsense and how often you get horrifically injured.”

“I’d play chess with you, Bones, but you’re terrible at it.” Jim points out. “There’s no need to get jealous.”

“I’ll infect you with something terrible, Jim, so help me god.” Bones scrolls through the statistics for the crew of the two vessels on his PADD. He keeps lingering over one file and it’s not that hard for Jim to guess which one. She’s close to his daughter’s age, after all.

“Her name’s Molly.” 

“Makes me glad my Joanna keeps her feet on the ground. It isn’t safe up here.”

“You’re right. Space is ‘disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.’” 

Bones makes a fantastically put-upon face at that and scrabbles under a pile of supplies for what is quite possibly a hypospray. 

Jim heads for the door.

-

So, Bones may not have had any valid points, but what he said has Jim stuck thinking over the tragicomedy that is his life. And it comes done to one vital and salient point: Jim really doesn’t want to screw any of this up. 

‘This’ currently includes Spock, him, and the easy, comfortable friendship that connects the two of them. He likes playing chess with him; talking to him about subjects related to the _Enterprise_ and their mission or, often as not, completely unrelated to either. They work well together and it may not be a ‘friendship that will define them both,’ but Jim’s starting to see how it could be, given time.

So he’s really not willing to screw all that up, just because he’s harboring a certain number of more-than-friendly thoughts about his first officer. He’s _Jim Kirk_ , he harbors a certain number of more-than-friendly thoughts about nearly everyone at some point or another. 

Unfortunately, all this introspection isn’t doing much for his chess game, as he loses one of his knights when Spock springs a trap with two pawns and a rook. Not a particularly devious trap, either, and he really should have seen it coming six moves ago.

The loss of the piece stings; Jim’s favorite pieces in chess are his knights. Sure, the queen has the power and he admires her for that, but she still follows straight paths and ordered lines. Knights get to move in unpredictable patterns; can go around problems instead of being trapped by them. He plays a devastating game with his knights, using them to rip through his opponent’s defenses in a fantastically illogical display.

“You are unusually pensive today, Jim,” Spock says as Jim takes one of his pawns, which is a poor exchange for a knight but better than nothing. Besides, it opens up a trap to take one of Spock’s rooks.

“I’m concentrating on the game,” he says, because it’s a sight better than the alternative where he tells the truth and lets Spock know what he’s actually be preoccupied thinking about.

“If this is the case, it is curious you lost one of your knights so readily, or that you lost your queen close to the outset of this match.” Another piece slides into place as he speaks; Spock plays chess like he does most things – with full consideration but no hesitation.

“Gloating is incredibly unbecoming of you, Spock.” He rolls the captured pawn back of forth between his hands.

“Vulcans - ”

“Do not gloat?” Jim finishes to Spock’s nod, which is ridiculous because, the hell they don’t.

“Quite. I simply stated an unbiased, impartial view of the current situation in play. As the current situation is strongly in my favor, you viewed it as ‘gloating;’ however, it remains a simple factual observation of events. It is unsurprising that you often perceive my actions as ‘gloating,’ considering the frequency with which matches are overwhelmingly in my favor.”

Jim can only stare at him. “If we find space zombies, I’m letting them eat you first.”

“Be that as it may, it will not help you win this match.” Spock moves one of his own knights up a level, in what Jim thinks is an attempt to threaten his rook. And just like that, the pieces on the board make perfect sense, the possible trap playing out in his head, step by step. By its very definition it’s a longshot but it wouldn’t be much fun otherwise.

“That sounds like a challenge. Prepare to taste bitter defeat, Spock.” He grins as Spock eyes him cautiously across the board, the acknowledgement that things are serious snapping into place.

He doesn’t talk after that, focuses on the chessboard instead. Jim’s got his work cut out for him defending his remaining pieces, compensating for his missing knight and queen, and keeping his side moving toward his trap without Spock noticing. Regardless, he manages, using all his skills of multitasking and misdirection to do it, and after ten minutes or so he makes his move.

It’s only a pawn; the weakest piece on the board and one Spock overlooked. And now, Jim’s slipped it past his defenses and advanced it to the far side of the board.

“Pawn promote to queen.” The surprise that flickers across Spock’s face is truly gratifying and Jim wastes no time in using his queen to tear through the unprotected back ranks of Spock’s pieces. As Spock was playing a fairly defensive game, this is pretty much the worst thing that could have happened to him. Jim’s able to threaten his king within two moves and when Spock moves the piece out of check it opens a clear path to his queen.

The game becomes brutal after that, quick and furious without quarter given on either side as they move toward endgame. However, Jim’s got a queen on his side and even though Spock’s clearly trying his hardest to avoid defeat, Jim doesn’t have to chase him around the board for more than a few moves before his first officer reaches out and tips his king over.

“Checkmate,” Jim says, and even though he barely murmurs the word he can hear it like a shout, the room suddenly too quiet. He isn’t holding his breath, because that would be stupid and a really good way to pass out but it almost feels like the room is, or this moment is, or something. Not that rooms or moments can breathe, so from the start it’s not his best metaphor but Jim’s not one for poetry or even diplomacy, most days. 

Other people are, though, and Jim’s clever enough to beg, borrow or steal when need be. 

“That was one hell of an endgame, Spock. One more such victory would utterly undo me.”

“I am not certain if you could entirely term your victory pyrrhic, but it was an interesting game,” Spock says, his gaze fixed on his fallen king.

“I was especially fond of the part where I won.” Jim reaches out to take hold of the toppled king, picking up the black piece. Spock doesn’t even seem to notice the absence of his defeated king, still staring at the decimated board.

“Gloating is unbecoming of you, Jim,” he murmurs and Jim laughs.

“Come on, it was one hell of a comeback.” Placing his fingertip on crown of the king, he rocks the piece back and forth on its base, before letting it fall to the ground once more. It spins lazily in a circle as they both watch.

“It was impressive,” Spock concedes, watching him now, as if he’s not just talking about the game anymore. Suddenly, Jim thinks that this could be it – this could be the moment where he actually does something. This could be it and that thought circles around his head, repeating itself endlessly while the moment passes right on by.

“A most fascinating game, Jim. If you will excuse me,” Spock says, rises and leaves. Jim’s aware of responding with his own goodbyes and manages to somehow wait until Spock’s left the room before dropping his head into his hands.

God, he’s a moron.

-

They pull out of warp smoothly, the _Enterprise_ barely shifting before the stabilizers kick in and they’re back in normal space, the expanse of black stretching out before them. 

They’re close enough to the planet that they can see the gentle arc of Delta-IV’s circumference, the sun just beginning to rise over the curve of the planet. It only takes a few moments for the _Reliance_ to come into focus, a dark metal shape hanging listlessly in the space before them. 

“Scans. What are we picking up?”

The crew reports in, almost before he’s spoken: nothing on any frequencies, no signals from the _Reliance_ at all.

“Sensors are detecting life signs inside the ship, Captain.”

Chekov chimes in, almost cutting Spock off. “Captain, the _Reliance_ appears to be running with all major systems offline. The only power signatures I’m detecting are life support and basic autopilot functions. Systems are reading as intact, without major damage to hull or infrastructure.”

He can see what Chekov means; Jim’s seen dead ships before and the _Reliance_ isn’t that. It’s not broken, spraying debris like the bits of a shattered toy. It looks like someone simply turned it off, as improbable – as illogical – as that seems.

“Sulu, place us in geosynch relative to the _Reliance_. Uhura, open hailing frequencies with the ship; anything they’re remotely likely to pick up.”

The ship’s flight levels out as Sulu adjusts it into orbit, settling the _Enterprise_ into position. He could hardly call their flight turbulent before, but now it’s smooth as glass, thrusters automatically adjusting for each minute shift in their orbit. 

Before them, occupying most of the viewscreen, is the _Reliance_. The ship is an empty husk, hollow. All the light’s gone out of it and an odd quiet settles over the bridge crew as they look at it.

“Captain, we’re hailing the _Reliance_ on all Federation frequencies.” Uhura’s poised, ready to transmit and so completely absorbed in her work the thought of insulting him probably never even occurred to her.

Jim stands and stares down that empty ship with the determination he applies to most of his life.

“This is Captain James Kirk of the _USS Enterprise_. We’ve been sent from Starfleet to determine you current situation and provide assistance. _USS Reliance_ , what is your status?”

There’s a crackle of connection, the white garble of sub-space static, and ultimately silence.

“Are you receiving, _Reliance?_ I repeat, what is your status?”

The same silence greets them, and Kirk throws a questioning look at Uhura, who’s already streaming through data as quickly as she can.

“Communications are open, and I register that the _Reliance_ is receiving them.”

“But no one’s home, essentially.” Which means this is actually beginning to resemble a twentieth century horror vid.

“Essentially, Captain,” Uhura confirms.

“Spock, we’ve made contact twice now. Any further information on the life signs board the ship in regards to that?”

Spock shakes his head. “All life our sensors can detect appears to be stationary. Instruments detect no irregularities in the atmosphere of the ship and are registering no contaminants or hazardous elements to the air of the ship.”

Jim gets up and moves to Spock’s science station, flicking through the data readings himself. No irregularities at all; the ship seems fully functional, just quiet. Sleeping.

“Alright.” He flicks open a channel on his communicator. “Scotty, I need you at transporter controls.”

He’s already moving for the door as he continues to speak. “Uhura, I’ve transferred you the away team list. Tell them transporter room asap with containment suits. Spock, you’ve got the conn.”

But his first officer’s already walking with him. “Captain, I believe my skills would be of use on this mission.”

Oh, _does_ he. Jim thinks it over for a half-second: the collective bitch fit his crew will throw if he gets himself eaten by space zombies will be something to behold. Something requiring grand, descriptive adjectives that he can’t think of right now but give him time. Spock on mission with him lessens the chance of him getting eaten by zombies considerably.

“Noted, Spock. Sulu, you’ve got the conn. Keep us in geosynch.”

The door slides shut on Sulu’s ‘yes, Captain,’ and then they’re both moving through hallways, Jim flicking open his communicator once more.

“Kirk to Sickbay.”

Bones’ response is slightly tinny but it’s irrefutably Bones. “Yes, Jim?”

“Prepare Sickbay to receive potentially injured crew members.”

“From the _Reliance_ only, I hope. Chapel just left to join the away team. I told her to keep an eye out for your particular brand of idiocy, so you’d better not be one of the injured, Jim.”

“I’ll do my best,” he says, and if he tries hard enough, he can almost picture Bones’ frustrated expression as he closes the communication.

Spock’s giving him a sidelong look, and his expression is Spock-like parallel to the one he thinks Bones must be wearing.

“What? I don’t get injured that frequently on away missions,” he finally says, doing his level best to keep his voice from getting defensive. The last thing he needs is the crew thinking their captain’s a danger magnet.

“I can provide the percentage of missions you have returned from injured in some way or another, Captain, though it will not help your argument.”

“That won’t be necessary, Spock,” Jim responds, and he swears that Spock almost smirks at him as they enter the transporter room.

-

Thankfully, the _Reliance_ is not full of space zombies. It’s full of stale air that smells of metal and dust. And silence. All he can hear is their footsteps and the sound of the quiet echo of his own breath. 

With the ship’s power nearly cut off, the hallways are dim to the point of blackness, the emergency lights still active but flickering in and out as they walk. It seems to slow everything down, fragment it as if he’s in an old vid, from when they were first invented. 

He can’t remember the word for them. Stop motion? Silent pictures? It would fit, as they invent a soundtrack of their own footsteps, quiet breaths and conversations that consist of fragments – science readouts, speculations, probable causes.

“The roster for the _Reliance_ reported a crew of 217 individuals, Captain. And external scans indicated that all escape shuttles were still docked with the ship,” Spock says. He doesn’t frame it as a question but Jim can hear it all the same.

What happened to the crew?

They round the corridor corner, leading them closer to the bridge. Jim’s in the lead of their little group, and nearly trips over the first of them, which would not be the most graceful thing he’s ever done in his tenure as captain so far, it’s true. He catches himself before him can actually fall, turning the trip into a stumble but keeping his footing as he jerks around, reaching down for his phaser.

It’s a body. A man, and it doesn’t like look he’s moving.

“Chapel?” She’s already moving, bent over one of the fallen figures, tricorder out. The man’s slumped halfway across the entrance to the bridge, the door kept perpetually open because of it. Through that open space he can see more figures, all of them slumped over. 

“I’m reading normal symptoms. Steady resting pulse, no evidence of sickness or presence of contaminants. According to this, they’re…well, Captain, they should be healthy and…fine. They should be fine.”

“From the position of these people and the information we have from the ship’s status, it would seem that they have been unconscious for at least a week, if not longer. Without medical attention, they should not be alive,” Spock says from behind them.

Chapel doesn’t look up from the figure she’s examining, squinting at the tricorder reading. “I’m aware of that, Commander Spock. But there’s no sign of organ failure from dehydration. There aren’t even signs of dehydration or malnutrition.”

Jim frowns. “Then these people have been ‘sleeping’ for a week, without food or water, and aren’t any the worse for it? A neat trick, but I didn’t think that was possible.”

“I know it’s medically unheard of, Captain. But these people are perfectly healthy; these are the sort of readings I’d expect from someone in the middle of a REM cycle.”

They do look like they’re sleeping. All of them just huddled over work stations or slumped on the floor, chests rising and falling with deep, regular breaths. He crouches down next to one, a woman with bright red hair. He recognizes her as the first mate of the ship. She doesn’t move when he reaches out and shakes her gently.

“What the hell?” One of the security ensigns with them curses softly, and it echoes across their communicators. Jim doesn’t reprimand her; he was close to expressing a similar sentiment. 

Spock’s already moving over to one of the terminals, lights flaring up as his presence activates it. Jim steps carefully around the fallen crew, moving up to flank him as they scan through the readings on the ship’s status. All systems are intact, though few of them are functioning. 

Tuned off. Everyone sleeping. 

“Can you access the ship’s log?”

Spock nods as he manipulates the display. 

“Good. Bring it up, scan it and package it to my PADD. I’ll remove it from the ship’s network. I don’t want us here any longer than we have to be.”

Even if it hasn’t been dangerous so far, there’s no guarantee that it’ll stay that way for long. Something happened to this ship and this crew, and he’s not about to risk it happening to his.

“Nurse Chapel, prepare several of the _Reliance’s_ crew for transport back to the ship. We can’t fix this unless we know what we ought to be fixing.” 

They transport back to the _Enterprise_ to the crackle of Chapel’s communicator activating as she informs Bones of the situation. His team’s waiting for them at the transporter pad, anti-gravity stretchers and tricorders ready.

“Bones, keep me updated.” Bones nods to him, attention already turned back to his patients as he preps them for the move to sickbay. Jim leaves him to it; he’s got work of his own to do.

He’s just stepped through the doors to the bridge when it happens. A feeling of something coming, a presence pushing down on them as the very air on the bridge shivers and twists. The instruments on the bridge scream out in warning once, sharp and clear, before everything falls silent.

There’s a flash of white. An impression of the air around him splintering, as if the entire world is a mirror that someone has picked up and flung, the images around him – his crew, his ship, himself - ripping apart, breaking into a million tiny fragments. 

They’re in space, but the world around him is bleeding white, the stars shining so brightly that they’re edging out the black all around them. He can’t breathe, can’t think, and it’s a blessing when his rising panic seizes him by the throat and throws him out of the world. 

Even as unconsciousness claims him, he fades away to the sight of unending white.

\----


	2. evigheden [part one]

\---- 

II

evigheden

_the walls of the palace were of driving snow, and the windows and doors of cutting winds_

\----

Jim wakes slowly, utterly enveloped by warmth, the solid weight of an arm cast across his waist, pulling his back flush against a firm chest. He’s content in a way he can’t remember being for some time; a quiet sort of happiness, where in this stillness even the light has a certain slant. Something different, but it’s warm and it’s been so long since he’s had the luxury of actually waking up on his own time, wrapped around another person.

Particularly since he doesn’t remember going to sleep next to another person – or going to sleep at all. He stiffens in the warm grip, but his body feels used to this and refuses to fully tense up, despite the full-on panic his mind is swiftly entering. It’s as if his body is too accustomed to a familiarity he can’t remember.

He lets his breathing even out and turns around, navigating the arm around his waist until he can see who it belongs to and ends up staring at Spock’s sleeping face.

Apparently, whatever complacency his body is feeling can be shaken off by the infusion of enough pure, distilled panic.

“What the _fuck?!_ ” He pushes away from the Vulcan, trying to maneuver himself to the opposite edge of the bed. The bed in his quarters is large enough that he ought to be able to put some distance between him and his possibly-drugged first officer. 

Drugs would be a reasonable explanation for this.

And then he’s suddenly falling off the edge, his legs tangling in sheets and heavy blankets. He ends up hitting the floor hard with his back and thwacking his head hard against the wood, almost knocking the wind out of him. His head begins to throb sharply, and he must have caught himself on the edge of something or other in this room, because he can feel the spreading warmth that tends to accompany a scalp wound. 

His head hurts and the room's doing a passable imitation of spinning and all that is very much the least of his problems. 

“Jim?” There’s a sleepy murmur from above and while he’s trying to get the ceiling to stop spinning the bed rustles and creaks. Spock manages to exit with much more grace, fine, the Vulcan’s good at everything even when drugged. He lets his head thump back against the uneven wood floor.

Something is very wrong here, he realizes, but Spock’s kneeling at his side, pressing warm fingers gently against his head, edging carefully to the wound he's managed to acquire. Jim tears his gaze away from the expanse of bare chest that is suddenly far too close. 

“You’re not wearing a shirt.” Which isn’t the most eloquent of things he’s ever said, it’s true, but this is _Spock_ , who manages to look neatly put together halfway through an emergency during gamma shift. 

Spock, who he was more or less cuddling in his sleep, an incredibly unhelpful part of his mind contributes. Jim does his level best to ignore it, something that becomes much easier when he realizes that he has absolutely no idea where he is. The room certainly isn’t on the _Enterprise_. In fact, he doubts he’s in space at all, not with weak morning sunlight filtering through tall windows and a hard wooden floor beneath him and the rough rafters of a sharply angled roof overhead. It’s a small room, ceiling canting down towards them and it’s cold, chilly enough that it brings to mind winters in Iowa, the sort of bite in the air that tends to comes with the promise of snow. 

Which is a lovely bit of introspection, really, but it doesn’t help him figure out where he is or solve the question of why his first officer is also here (shirtless, supplies the traitorous back corner of his mind) and leaning over him.

“Jim. You hit your head with significant enough force to concuss yourself. Can you focus on me?” Spock lifts him up carefully into a sitting position as Jim bites back both the thin threads of nausea and his answer; yes, he could focus on Spock, but he’d really prefer not to right now. He’d prefer someone tell him what the hell is going on but so far he’s had no luck in that particular venue.

Spock appears to take Jim's continued silence as evidence of actual injury, and he stands and moves for the door, calling out for someone – actually shouting.

Spock never shouts. He speaks firmly and occasionally emphatically, but he never shouts. And that should really not be the pressing concern on Jim’s mind right now, but still.

“Jim?” A different voice, belonging to a different person. Bones crouches next to him, taking a moment to shoo Spock away.

Yes, shoo. No other word can adequately describe that hand motion. 

“Jim, are you alright? Come on, look at me.” Bones gently feels the back of his head, tilting his head up so he can look in Jim’s eyes.

There’s nothing strange in Bones’ face, nothing out of place in his expression or his eyes and that’s it. It’s finally more than he can take and Jim pushes Bones out of the way and bolts for the door.

If this all some sort of cracked psychic illusion, at least he’ll get a running start. On who, he doesn’t know, but that’s not really the point. He’s down a set of stairs before the sound of their pursuit reaches him. There’s a door in front of him that looks like it leads outside and he grabs a bundle of fabric that is hopefully a coat, shoves his feet into boots that, amazingly enough, fit him perfectly and he’s outside, into a world of blinding white and brilliant cold.

It’s snowing outside. He doesn’t know where he is or how he got there or what the hell is going on and it’s _snowing_ , the world around them blanketed by it, by the silence and the snow. 

Drifting slowly down, it settles on his hair and on the thick fabric of the coat he grabbed. He can see the clouds of condensation his breath makes in the air, the air that’s cold enough to catch in his throat as he breathes.

Jim turns slowly, taking in the sight of the land around him. Trees and fences, the edges of the large house he came from. The tracks of his footprints in the snow, bleeding through the carpet of white like pinprick wounds. 

And all around him, the endless expanse of white. It presses down on him, not just the snow but the quiet that accompanies it, as if all the world and time were standing still.

He can hear his own heart thundering in his chest, disbelief beating like a drum, like a fully-fledged percussion band.

This can’t possibly be real, but his breath steams in the air in front of him, clouds of white. There’s a shiver crawling up his spine and he does his best to tell himself that it must be the cold.

“Jim!” The shout comes behind him and he whips around to track the noise – too loud, it’s too loud against all this silence. Breaks through it and shatters the stillness, pieces falling around him. Shards, like glass or a mirror and the memory of that, of what had happened on the _Enterprise_ , seizes him. The world had shattered, like someone had made the image of him and his ship and all his crew into a mirror and smashed it upon the ground. 

That’s important, he thinks. What happened then, it has to be important. He picks that thought up and believes in it, holds onto it as tightly as he can.

It’s cold. All around him, a blanket of cold and silence and _snow_. He stumbles to his knees, twisting around to see who’s shouting his name and can’t quite seem to get up properly, to rise against the oppressive weight of all this white. 

And it’s really fucking cold. 

A second shout, closer this time, and there are warm hands pulling him up out of the snow. One pair of hands but two voices and through the dazed chorus of ‘what the hell is going on’ resounding in his brain, he manages to separate sounds into words and translate. It’s easier and harder than it ought to be, considering he knows both of these voices and the language they speak.

“Jim, you are not adequately dressed for this weather. I fear you may have concussed yourself, impairing your judgment. You must come inside,” says Spock, his hands warm even through the coat Jim had thrown on, pulling him easily to his feet. His grip is firm as he supports Jim’s weight.

“Are you cracked in your head? Wait, you're bleeding - you _are_ cracked in the head! You don’t even have a shirt on underneath that coat. Exposure like that to these temperatures could kill someone!” says Bones, and it’s so quintessentially Bones that Jim wants to shake him for a moment, demand that he tell Jim what’s happened. 

But Bones thinks that this is all normal too. He can’t help Jim, and he closes his eyes against that and lets Spock lead him inside. 

Oh god. He is actually going mad. That is the only explanation for this bullshit. 

“Where are we?” he asks, because he hasn’t tried that yet. It might work. The direct approach. 

“My mother’s house, Jim, though she’s not home, before you start worrying,” Bones answers, which is helpful except for the parts where it really isn’t. Jim’s been to Bones’ mother’s house and this is not it. If nothing else, he remembers a remarkable lack of blizzards in Georgia.

It also doesn’t begin to put him at ease: he’s met Bones’ mother and considering the terrifying experience that had been he’ll offer up thanks to whomever that she’s not here now.

He’s used to a lot, but a tiny southern woman shaking his hand with one hand while holding a shotgun with the other was decidedly too much to ask. An actual bullets-and-all shotgun. 

“Okay.” He can do this. He can be in control and manage things and not be terrified by the situation at hand. “We’re in your mother’s house, though your mother is not home, because someone loves the concussed. But she’s somewhere close because we are all in the land of…?” He trails off. He does this deliberately, because he is in control.

Bones looks torn between worry and irritated worry, a subtle but important distinction in emotions. Spock appears to bypass worry entirely in favor of stuffing Jim into a sweater that is too itchy to be made out of anything other than actual wool.

Jim stifles the corner of his brain that keeps getting caught up on the fact that Spock is touching him with the ease that comes of familiar affection. Apparently, at least a corner of his brain is a twelve year old girl despite all his best intentions and claims to the contrary.

The logical majority of his brain knows that Spock touching him at all, let alone with ease or affection, means they truly are in bizarro world.

“You’ve finally managed to concuss yourself stupid. We’re on Delta-IV.”

It’s amazing how much that does not help. He must look as blindsided as he feels because Bones rounds on Spock, as if this is all his fault. Who knows – it could be. It doesn’t seem the likeliest of conclusions but Jim’s willing to settle in the interests of his sanity.

“I told you that if he kept hitting his head this was bound to happen. Now he’s probably broken.”

“I’m not broken,” Jim contradicts automatically, because he’s not. Everything else is, but he’s fine. “I’m very confused. Let’s blame my concussion while I sort stuff out. Just, you know, pretend I don’t know anything. I’m sure it’ll come back to me in time.” Hopefully not until he figures out what the hell’s going on and how to stop it.

Neither Bones nor Spock looks very convinced, and Spock draws his hand away from Jim’s shoulder and looks him in the eye. His feels cold again in the absence of that warmth until Jim tells himself to curtail the melodrama. 

“Here, I’ll start with what I know. We’re on in your mother’s house, Bones, which is on Delta-IV, and it’s snowing because – actually, that’s about where I stop having useful information.”

It’s Spock turn to look mildly confused. As confused as Spock ever looks, at any rate.

“It is winter, Jim. The snow is quite typical.”

He’s pretty sure from the environmental readouts of Delta-IV neither snow or winter would be “quite typical” for this planet. 

“So, it’s been winter for a good long time, then.”

Spock continues to look confused, possibly even more so. It’s almost like a real expression. “It is always winter here, Jim.”

He’s got absolutely nothing he can say to that or to the clear acceptance in Spock’s voice when he says it – as if it always being winter is the most normal thing in the world.

“You must have rattled more than I thought if this is shocking you, Jim. You know how this works. It’s always winter here, always winter and never Christmas,” Bones says, and there’s something about the last line that rips through the confusion haze in his mind and snags on a distant memory. Jim’s heard that phrase before.

“That’s not your line,” he says, more like mumbles. They both hear him, but neither comment. He supposes, from their perspective, it’s hardly the strangest thing he’s said so far today. 

Bones sighs, as if Jim’s refutation of the ‘never Christmas’ line is more than he can take. No one even celebrates Christmas anymore, not really. “Look, Jim, why don’t we show you around and then we’ll head into town. It’s all familiar stuff for you and hopefully it’ll settle you down.”

He nods; it’s probably his best shot at getting new information. Over the course of the next hour or so Jim learns several things. One, all circumstantial evidence points to the fact that Bones’ mother is terrifying in any incarnation. Two, Bones is still a doctor – or rather, as he says while tending to Jim's head wound, he's a “physician” – and Spock and Jim “manage their families’ respective estates” whatever that actually means.

Three, and along with the fourth, perhaps most important (and yes, he is actually numbering his thoughts, which is terrifying in and of itself) Jim appears to be stuck in some sort of countryside winter wonderland pastiche crafted from someone’s ideals of seventeenth or eighteenth century country life on earth. There was possibly a lot of Dickens involved, and the whole thing feels decidedly Victorian. He’s pretty sure he’s read some of the sourcebooks this is coming from. It’s a bit like seeing the original sources shining through a mishmash of plagiarism – which means it’s giving him a headache on top of the one the bump and cut on his head left him with.

The house is quaint, for lack of a better term; there’s even a fireplace. The clothes Spock gives him consist of dark trousers he’s pretty sure are made of leather and in the “we’re rustically and cheerfully braving the elements” way instead of a “we're going clubbing and getting laid” way. Acompanying it is a shirt that requires a complicated number of ties to fasten it and another over shirt of appropriately itchy wool and the long coat he grabbed earlier, now hung up at the door.

And then there is Important Fact Number Four. 

He really should have seen it coming, considering the position he was in when he woke up in this crazy head-trip of a psychic attack or drug-induced nonsense. He doesn’t, mostly to his own dismay, wake up next to anyone – much less his first officer.

He doesn’t ever realize what’s happening at first. Bones has moved off to prepare something or grumble at someone, and Spock reaches out and places one hand flat against the wall in front of him, literally blocking his path.

“Your behavior seems irregular even for a concussion. I confess that I am somewhat alarmed by it.”

Spock is very close, and Jim’s doesn’t do this. He’s not the sort who fumbles for words or actions; he moves boldly and always forward. 

But moving anywhere would just bring him closer to Spock.

“I’m fine, Spock. A bit bruised but none the worse for wear.” He settles for standing very still against the wall.

“Variable definitions,” Spock simply says. He looks almost expectant, as if the words are part of a secret code that the two of them share. As if Jim should understand what he means.

“I’m physically able and no more mentally damaged than usual,” he settles on as a reply.

“I suppose we ought to count our blessings and perhaps request that Doctor McCoy be on hand with any appropriate remedies.” 

“For my nonexistent injuries?” he asks. The cold is seeping through the walls of the house, and Spock is close enough that Jim can feel the heat the Vulcan radiates. It’s distracting, to say the least. 

“Or your mental state,” Spock says. If he weren’t pressed against the wall, he might have staggered at the realization that Spock just made a joke. Not just veiled sarcasm, but an actual joke.

It’s decidedly out of character, but it’s nothing compared to what Spock does next, as he leans in and presses his lips against Jim’s. It’s gentle, as kisses go, but it’s Spock and all his colorful imaginings couldn’t begin to match the reality.

Spock pulls back after only a moment, looking at Jim. Confusion and concern flicker through his eyes.

“Jim, are you quite certain you are well?”

He’s still standing and curtailing a well-deserved fit of ‘what the fuck,’ so he’s more than well, he deserves a medal. One that is large and possibly shiny. 

Managing a nod, he ducks under Spock’s arm and heads to the other room.

-

Bones isn’t anywhere in the house. Jim wanders through the hallway and outside, Spock following like a silent shadow. This would not be strange – Spock is hardly talkative – but this silence presses in on him. It’s heavy and pushes at him with a force equal to his resounding confusion. He clears his throat a few times.

“I believe that Doctor McCoy is currently preparing for our trip into town,” Spock says. “He should be outside.”

“Outside doing what, exactly?” he asks, but Spock’s already moving past him, heading toward the door. He settles into his own coat before holding Jim’s out to him. Now that he’s properly attired he can appreciate how warm the thing really is – he feels warm the instant he dons the heavy coat, despite the chill of the house.

“Isn’t all this cold difficult for you, Spock?”

Spock pauses, his hand on the handle of the door. “What do you mean, Jim?”

“You’re not fond of the cold and here we’ve got this ‘always winter, never Christmas’ setup. It can’t be easy for you.” Spock continues to stare at him. It’s possible Jim’s already breaking the rules of bizarro world. 

“While I do not enjoy being cold, this is the only weather I have known. I would have no basis for comparison.”

And with that profoundly impossible statement, he walks outside into the snow. Jim scrambles after him, shivering as the cold hits him. It’s easier to deal with now, wearing the proper clothing for all this nonsense weather, although he can’t help but shudder as he sinks nearly a foot into the snow outside. 

After he’s done scowling at the snow he’s struggling to walk through, Jim realizes how surprisingly stunning the world around him actually is. The snow is so white it’s nearly blinding, but the woods it blankets are picturesque; evergreens standing tall despite the weight of the snow. 

It’s idyllic. Cold, but idyllic and somehow pristine, which reassures his belief that this can’t possibly be real. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his coat and tromps after the dark blue outline of Spock in his coat, catching up to him as Spock pulls open the door to the building closest to the house, ushering Jim inside.

The building is a barn. A barn with stalls in it and horses, three of which are standing hipshot in the center aisle, tacked and apparently ready to go. Spock immediately moves to stand next to the tall brown one and Bones is tightening the girth of the grey one in the middle, which leaves Jim the bored-looking chestnut.

He approaches with no small amount of caution; the chestnut continues to look bored at him.

“About time you two got here; your mare was a predictable bitch to saddle, Jim. Besides, I doubt you and Spock sucking face would have done much to improve the addled state of your brain.” Bones pats the side of his horse’s neck a few times, and Jim breaks off the staring contest he’d been having with his horse to stare at Bones instead.

“Bones - ” he starts, but Spock beats him to it.

“There is no scientific evidence that suggests it would _not_ have improved his mental state.” 

His horse nudges her head against him, and he pats her absently. 

“Which one of us is the doctor here?” McCoy demands, leading his horse forward, heading outside.

Spock follows him. “You are the only one among us who possesses a medical degree, McCoy.” 

“Makes me the authority here. Jim, stop fussing around with Iowa and come on. Last thing we want is to feel how cold it gets when the sun goes down.”

Jim checks his horse’s - Iowa’s - girth and follows the two of them. The horse shifts restlessly as she walks through the snow, but quiets under his hand.

Take that, bizarro world, he thinks as he swings onto the horse. He’d learned how to ride because it was fun and he was bored growing up. Besides, one of his neighbors kept horses and figured the worst the Kirk kid could do was fall off and crack his head open. 

Now, his horse shifts her weight as Jim mounts up but she doesn’t try to dump him into the nearest snowbank, or do much of anything except turn her head to stare at him.

He can work with that.

\- 

They tie up the horses outside of what Jim’s just going to call Ye Olde Apothecary, and Bones and Spock walk ahead of him while he takes in the sight of the town around him. They’re walking close together, heads bent towards each other in discussion, and it’s blatantly obvious they’re talking about him. Really, it’s a little bit sad. They possibly even think they’re being clever. 

Amidst all the snow, white on white everywhere, the flash of red stands out like a banner, waving proudly. The woman has curly red hair in a messy halo around her face and for one moment Jim thinks it must be Gaila, somehow making the trip from engineering deck to snowy countryside. Jim’s sure Gaila could manage; she’s flexible in more ways than one. Thinks on her feet, adapts well to new situations. 

It isn’t Gaila but something about the woman sticks in his mind, and he ends up watching her as she brushes snow away from the front door of what he assumes is her shop. She pauses for a moment and gathers her hair away from her face. There’s a moment where it’s pulled back into something that would be regulation on a Starfleet vessel and it changes the entire shape of her face, paints her appearance as something far more severe. Commanding.

He’s looking at Rebecca Thatcher, the first officer of the _Reliance_. She’s wearing a heavy woolen overcoat instead of a red Starfleet uniform – Thatcher had been a communications officer, he remembers from the roster. She’s also smiling and laughing as a passerby speaks to her, and she had looked far more serious from her profile image. A stern woman given to issuing orders, not the laughing owner of a bookstore. 

Jim walks over to her, calling out as he approaches. “Good day, Ma’am. It’s Thatcher, isn’t it?” 

“It is, though I don’t think we’ve met, young sir.”

He gives her the most honest, open-natured smile in his arsenal and remembers every trick he learned from growing up in Iowa about making small-town small-talk. He can’t applicably talk about cows, which knocks out one of his major topics of conversation, but he’ll manage.

“Well, I’ve heard such great things about Rebecca Thatcher’s bookshop; I couldn’t help but stop by. How long have you had the store?” As dialogue goes, it’s borderline insipid, but it does the job well enough: Thatcher launches into a description of her store and the life of owning a bookshop. Apparently, it’s been in her family for generations and as she talks he stares at her features, absolutely certain that this is the first officer of the _Reliance_ , somehow integrated into this collective hallucination.

There isn’t really protocol for all this, but Jim’s had the appropriate briefings about psychic “incidents,” as they’re called. It’s all beginning to make a horrid sort of sense, really – all the crew members of the _Reliance_ looked like they were asleep. Like they were dreaming. 

He doesn’t know why he’s kept his sense of reality when no one else has, but there are a lot of things he doesn’t know about the current situation. 

So, as a running theory, he and his crew, the crew of the _Reliance_ and possibly the crew of the _Kenntnis_ , why not, have been drawn into a shared psychic world. Based upon the actual crew of _Reliance_ , Jim suspects his body is currently slumped over on the bridge of the _Enterprise_ , which should still be on autopilot and swiftly switching over to basic life-support functions. 

Like a dream everyone’s having together, except Jim, who gets to remember that this is all bullshit. Because he’s special. 

Of course, there are conflicting theories. Possibly he just hit his head really hard and this is just his cracked out dream. Jim tries to disregard that; it seems pretty unlikely and besides, he's from Iowa, not Kansas, and Scoty's the only crew member who came close to having a dog. It's also possible that this is a big psychic trap created to ensnare him and as soon as he turns his back Spock or Bones is going to turn into some sort of monster and rip him to pieces.

It seems even more unlikely that the “it's all a dream” theory and he shelves it as the least probable explanation for this ridiculousness. It doesn’t explain the appearance of the crew of the _Reliance_ here, either. 

He’s been half-listening to Thatcher’s continuing description of the ordering processes for new books, nodding in the appropriate places, when the entire situation comes into a new perspective.

“And, of course, all of this would be a great deal easier if we could go past the Snow Queen’s palace, because those are the shortest trade routes to a lot of the other cities. There’s no chance the Snow Queen would allow that; however, so we make do.”

The Snow Queen. He can work with this, though he expects a celebration of truly epic proportions once he saves the day. 

“The Snow Queen’s not a fan of literature?”

Thatcher laughs at that. “The Snow Queen’s not a fan of much of _anything_ , except winter. She causes this, after all,” she says, waving her hand out to encompass the endless white around them, the snow falling even now. It’s been falling since he woke up here. It never stopped, not for a moment.

“Always winter?” he asks, and Thatcher nods immediately.

“Always winter and never Christmas. Always winter and never spring. It’s her fault, but she doesn’t know that.” She looks him dead on while speaking, barely even blinking she's so focused on him, and he resists the urge to shudder in this damnable cold.

“Good day, young sir.” 

He stares at her as she walks back into her store. Keeps staring at the closed door, the display of books and writing supplies, all out of date and inextricably fitting for this strange place.

Even when Spock comes and finds him, he still hasn’t moved. A soft touch on his shoulder draws him out of himself, and he lets himself be led away.

-

The town is smaller than he would have expected, a handful of streets branching out from the central square, lined with buildings with stores on the lower level, residences on the top. 

Spock and Bones move like people who know where they’re going, and people call out to them as they pass, all garbed in the same mishmash of cold weather gear and Victorian sensibilities. He catalogues the conversation topics he manages to overhear:

“It’s always cold but I swear it’s colder than normal for this time of year.”

“Did you hear, that they snowdrifts are so high ‘round near the Snow Queen that trade’s having a hard time getting through?”

“It’s a time and a half getting through that snow, but the forest past it is something else. My brother’s a trader and he says there’s even plants growing there, and _flowers_. Roses, he said. Can you imagine?”

“Damn near broke my neck – if I hear once more that we ought to be grateful we’ve got cleared paths at all I swear I’ll break his neck.”

“When was the last time anyone saw flowers?”

“We'll break our backs just getting through longnight, but she'll have solstice dance same as always. Not that anyone's gone – who would want to go to Evigheden and her court?”

“My brother told me our uncle used to travel through the three forests. Brought back souvenirs from all three of them – look, I've got them at home if you don't believe me.”

“Nobody’s moving to close to Evigheden, even if the passes are clearer right near it. Nobody’s willing to do that.”

Weather and trade, stories and nonsense. It’s what life in a small town like this revolves around, he imagines – the weather that dictates what they do and the trade that they depend on. As for the stories and nonsense, well, they’ve got to keep themselves occupied somehow.

“So what exciting adventures are next?” he asks after they’ve made a circuit of the market square. There’s a statue in the middle of it, of two people standing back to back. It’s hard to see under all the snow, but it looks like a young boy and girl.

“Don’t know how ‘exciting’ you’ll think it but it needs to be done regardless,” Bones says, and points the way to a smaller street next to Ye Olde Apothecary. “I had the cartographer draw up a new survey of my mother’s lands.”

Spock keeps pace with Jim. “At your mother’s request?”

Bones combines a nod and a grimace. “Partially that, partially some bureaucratic finagling. It’s a bit of both and not terribly pretty.”

It’s a well-layered illusion, Jim’ll give it that. Snow, quaint little village, people with quaint country-life personalities pastiches, and, apparently, frustrating bureaucracy. He imagines most would have left out the bureaucracy.

“The cartographer will already have registered the maps with the hall of records, then?” Spock asks. He seems to have no issues navigating the packed snow and slush of the street, deeper now in this narrow side alley. In comparison, Jim has tripped and nearly fallen on his face three times now. This shit is slick, and his boots have next to no traction.

Unfair. 

“He’s thorough enough, so I’m sure he managed. Hell, ‘thorough’ is an understatement. You’ve met him, the kid probably registered them twice just to make sure, and measured the borders of the land using three separate unit systems. For fun.”

“And you willingly let this guy on your property,” Jim says, perhaps uncharitably, under his breath as they approach the shop.

It isn’t just the cartographer’s store, he realizes as he steps through the narrow doorway, it’s a cartographer’s horde. His holy grail, his veritable promised land. Maps are spread out across tables, rolled up and stacked neatly on the shelves that line the wall, tucked into corners and edges until the room itself overflows. Maps that are drawn on yellowing parchment or off-white papers that probably aren’t, sketching out landscapes that he doesn’t recognize.

“Welcome!” A voice calls out from above. He parses which parts of the store are wood and which are piles of maps, and the outline of a flight of stairs resolves itself.

“Just a moment, I’ll be right down.” The voice continues, and Jim knows that voice. He doesn’t understand why he’d still have a Russian accent in a world without a Russia, but the voice is indisputable. “I am just finishing up some filing, and - ” 

There’s a clatter of wood on wood and the rustle of falling paper. Several maps drift down from the upper level; Jim catches them carefully. The paper is rough, the texture coarse and irregular under his fingertips.

A faint Russian curse drifts down from above, and Chekov descends the stairs, moving maps aside to make way for his own passage, a bundle of rolled paper clutched under one arm.

“And clearly it has gone all over the place. I will have to sort it later, I suppose. Always, I think I need either a bigger shop or fewer maps, but neither of these things happens.”

“Good day to you, Cartographer,” Bones greets him, and Chekov waves it off.

“Please, Doctor McCoy, my name is Chekov. I am much more used to that than ‘cartographer.’ And you are here for your maps, correct? I have them,” he declares, and then scans the piles of papers around them. 

“Upstairs. I have them upstairs. Perhaps you would like to wait?”

Bones throws a glance to the chaos of papers that is upstairs. “Maybe you could use some help?”

“I have an assistant,” Chekov says, and turns, looking around the store. Jim does the same, but all he can see is layers upon layers of maps and papers. “But he is possibly working in the basement. I am sure you would like your maps sooner than later, so your help would be most useful, thank you.”

Jim wanders over to one of the larger maps in the store, spread out across the wall and wider than the span of his arms. He examines the careful tracery of land, the dots that mark towns and cities, the scratches of forests and imprints of mountain ranges. 

“The lands of Delta-IV,” Spock says from behind him. “It is a detailed and accurate representation, though the river has been frozen solid for many years. There has been no trade on it since the winter.” He reaches out past Jim and traces a careful finger over one meandering line; Jim tries not to tense against the sudden heat at his back. 

“Always winter,” he begins, and sure enough, Spock finishes the refrain.

“And never spring. It is the way of things, here.” He drops his arm to his side but doesn’t move away.

“Always?”

“For as long as anyone can recall.” 

Jim reaches out to trace to line of the river, the edges of mountains. He finds the town they’re in now, the small black speck on the map, and moves away from it, his hand hovering over the map’s surface. One city’s different than the others, marked with a perfectly minute crown.

“Evigheden.” Jim sounds the word out. 

“The Snow Queen’s palace. It is something of a no-man’s-land, I believe, and thus avoided. Most trade routes go around it.”

If he shifts back just slightly, he’ll be leaning against Spock, with his back to Spock’s chest. He breathes in and out slowly, nearly counting each inhale and exhale and keeps still. “Is she the only one who lives there? The Snow Queen?” 

He wonders at what point saying this sort of shit stopped being ridiculous.

“I would have no way of knowing. Her name implies she keeps a court of some kind, but Evigheden is hardly welcoming to guests.”

“So no one’s actually tried to go to Evigheden?”

Spock says nothing for some time before answering. “No, Jim. No one has tried.” There is a calculated lack of challenge in his voice.

It’s quiet after that, but Jim doesn’t mind. He looks at the map and thinks, calculates distances and possibilities. He doesn’t move, not even after Spock steps away, presumably to see what’s taking Chekov and Bones so long.

Eventually, a new voice startles him out of his thoughts.

“Is there anything I can help you with, Sir?” The man must be Chekov’s assistant. Chekov, who is a mapmaker, who plots courses and practices cartography. He supposes it fits.

Maybe Scotty’s here somewhere, building impossible machines for Sulu to pilot. And maybe Uhura’s already learned all the different languages of this place. Surely, she would be able to tell him what Evigheden means. 

Once he focuses on the assistant, he realizes that he knows this man, just as he knew the woman outside. Ryan Williams, navigator for the _Reliance_. From the look in his eyes, flat as glass, Williams probably doesn’t know who anyone is right now. The words Starfleet or Federation or _Reliance_ wouldn’t mean anything to him, and Jim sighs.

“No, I’m just...browsing. Looking about. Thanks.”

“You are, Sir. Looking, that is. Always. But I have the map you asked for.”

“I didn’t ask for anything.” It appears that every conversation he has here is destined to be surreal on some level.

Williams runs a hand through his hair, drawing brown bangs away from a round face. “It is always winter here, young sir. Always winter and never Christmas and never, ever spring, because none of this is real.” 

Jim had turned away from Williams at the start of the now familiar phrase, had nearly begun to walk away. He almost didn’t hear William’s last words, spoken in the same exact (damn creepy) sing-song tone he keeps hearing in this place. When they register, he whips around so quickly he nearly sends several maps tumbling to the floor.

“ _What_ did you just say?” He is careful to keep his voice quiet, sees Chekov talking to Bones and Spock by the other side of the store. He hadn’t even heard them come down the stairs.

Williams gifts him with the same blank stare the man had worn earlier. “Your purchase, Sir. A dangerous map, but I wish you the best with it.”

“No – what did you say before? About the winter, why it’s ‘always winter and never spring.’ You gave me a reason why, don’t you remember?” The urge to reach out and shake the man is very strong, and Jim clenches his hands into fists, muscles of his arms drawn tight.

“The winter? It’s always winter here Sir, and it’s hell on the cartographer’s profession. You must be careful to keep the papers dry, Sir. The vellum, in particular, will be the worse for wear in this damp. You must take care not to let the snow on them. You must be careful and follow the rules. Don’t stray off the path, young Sir.” He hands Jim the bundle of maps, but the papers rustle in his hand and his eyes are almost focused. Almost human.

Jim decides to chance it. “You are Lieutenant Williams, navigator on the _USS Reliance_. You were sent to investigate the _Kenntnis_ , on a mission from Starfleet. Report, Lieutenant!” He puts all his authority into the command, everything he’s learned in a year and a half of being captain, and compels Williams to obey him by the force of his voice alone.

Williams eyes flicker back and force, meeting his for brief seconds before focusing on some unidentified point on the wall past Jim. Here, there, here, there – he swallows, and Jim can see his posture straighten, the muscles of his right arm twitch as he half-raises it and then lowers it again to his side.

“She’s a part of the story too,” Williams finally says, and Jim doesn’t understand any of it but he’s actually getting somewhere. He’s about to press for more when Williams convulses, shakes all over. He straightens, but when he meets Jim’s eyes this time there’s nothing there, not anymore.

“Anything else I can help you with, Sir?”

Jim stifles a curse. He’d been so close to actually getting somewhere and now’s he’s right back to where he started, all alone in this strange…whatever this is. He manages to shake his head at Williams and walks over to the desk in the back of the shop, rests his palms flat against the dark wood. It’s strewn with maps detailing lands he’s never heard of and places he knows can’t be real. The wood feels solid under his hands, and he can hear the familiar voices of Bones and Spock but he doesn’t understand how any of this can be real.

Here be dragons. Maybe so, but that doesn’t help him much.

There are steps behind him as Williams moves, walking around to the other side of the table. He reaches out and rests his hand on one of the maps, one Jim recognizes as displaying the town and lands they’re in now. The once-navigator taps his finger on one point far to the edge, past forests and the scattered scratches of mountains. He keeps tapping at one point. Jim thinks it a castle or a city, until he sees the name. Evigheden.

“The walls are too high. She has to let you in,” the man whispers and accompanying the words is the drip of red onto the white map, drop after drop. Jim jerks his gaze upward to track the blood dripping from the man’s nose, before Williams folds, just drops to the floor like someone’s cut his legs out from under him, convulsions shaking his frame.

“Bones!” He nearly vaults over the table to get to Williams. The navigator’s shaking seems to have subsided somewhat but blood is still flowing from his nose, beginning to stain his grey shirt. Jim tries to remember what to do in this situation, makes sure the man’s airways aren’t blocked and tilts his head up to keep him from choking on his own blood. He takes the half moment to check that his neck wasn’t severely damaged in the fall, though Jim’s ability to diagnose damage ranges from ‘is it moving?’ to ‘is it dead?’

He’s not responding, not even when Jim calls out his name. He doesn’t want to shake the man, but he’s coming close to it, hands hovering over Williams’ shoulders.

“Jim! What the hell happened?” Bones pushes him aside to check on Williams and Jim tries to stay out of his way.

“He just started to convulse and then he collapsed. I don’t know what the hell happened.” 

Bones runs certain hands over Williams, checking the man’s airway, taking care with how much he moves him. “His breathing is clear, nothing obstructing his airway, pulse steady and pupils responsive to light. He seems perfectly healthy, except for the bloody nose and the sudden shaking fit.”

Both Chekov and Spock follow Bones over, though they appear to have the sense to keep their distance. 

“Chekov, do you have a bed or cot on this floor? I don’t want to chance moving him up those stairs,” Bones asks after checking over the man. It’s strange to see him work without a tricorder, though the doctor manages. After all, he wouldn’t even know what a tricorder _is_ right now.

Chekov nods. “There is a small room in back. Will he pull through, Doctor McCoy?”

“I should think so, but without knowing the cause of the seizure it’s hard to say for certain. Jim, what was he doing?”

They lift Williams and carry him to the back room carefully, Chekov darting ahead of them to open the door. “Nothing, Bones. I’m serious – he…recommended some maps for me, and we were discussing them when the nosebleed started. And then he collapsed,” Jim says.

He doesn’t say: and Williams had almost known who he was, had almost made sense, had almost seemed real and made sense. Had told Jim what to do, or at least pointed him in the right direction. 

Somehow, he imagines it wouldn’t go over well.

After Williams is arranged on the narrow bed in the other room, Chekov turns to Bones. “Doctor McCoy, I must thank you. I would not have had the first idea what to do and would probably have made everything much worse.” 

Bones waves off his thanks, propping Williams’ head up with a few pillows. “I didn’t do much of anything except keep him from choking and check him over. He ought to wake soon enough, and he might be disoriented when he does. The apothecary knows enough to give him a check-over but as long as he doesn’t seize again he should recover fine.”

“Again, my thanks.” Chekov enthusiastically shakes each of their hands, even Spock’s. He squints at the bundle of maps Jim holds, the ones Williams had given him.

“Would you like me to send the charge for those to your estate, Mister…Kirk, correct?”

Chekov doesn’t even know him. 

“Yeah, thanks,” he says and tucks the maps away.

-

They stop a few kilometers away from the house to give the horses a rest. Jim leans against Iowa’s withers, and the mare is nice enough to not shift away and dump him on the ground.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Jim begins.

“Heaven help us all,” Bones mutters, perfectly audibly. Jim ignores him.

“The thing of it is, I’ve got a plan.”

“You’ve ‘got a plan?’ That’s a little bit terrifying, Jim.” Bones finishes checking his horse’s tack, to settle on staring at him dubiously, an expression Spock had already decided on.

“Yeah, I’ve got a plan. All of this – this always winter, never Christmas, never spring nonsense? It’s all because of the Snow Queen, right?” He throws his arms wide, encompassing the world around them: the trees, the fields, the sky, and the endless expanses of white.

“This is an accepted fact, Jim. It is something we all learn when we are young – an irrevocable aspect of how this world works.” Spock watches him closely, assessing, evaluating.

“Irrevocable?” Jim quotes the word back at him.

“A part of the natural laws of this world,” Spock clarifies.

“Jim, it’s just how things work. It’s how they’ve always worked and despite the fact that you’ve hit your head hard enough to knock delusions of grandeur and nonsense into your brain, it’s how they’re going to continue to work.” Bones, this time. Maybe he thinks force will simplify what Jim refuses to accept. 

It won’t. Instead, he seizes on his turn of phrase, grabs the words by the throat and bites down deep. Holds on. 

“No, it’s not. It’s not ‘how things work.’ The Snow Queen hasn’t been here forever, which means this winter hasn’t either. She’s doing it, according to just about everyone I’ve talked to and everything I’ve heard. It can’t be a ‘natural law’ if it’s because of one person.” He doesn’t raise his voice, but he doesn’t need to. The quiet words strike home with enough intensity, the strength of his convictions behind them. He won’t be shaken from this.

“Jim.” Spock’s voice is gentle, his hands carefully at his sides. As if Jim were a particularly skittish animal he had to approach with care. “Assuming that this is true, and the Snow Queen is the one agent causing the perpetual winter of this region, what could possibly be done to address this?”

He grins, and it’s full of challenge. “That’s where the plan comes in. We go to Evigheden and stop the Snow Queen. We’ll pretend to fit in at her court – it’s a palace and she’s a queen, there’s got to be some sort of official function we can sneak into. And then we stop her. It’s a pretty direct plan, don’t you think?” He crosses his arms over his chest, watches the clouds of his breath in the air. Each breath rips down his throat, the air so cold and dry he feels the impact of each inhalation. 

At that, Bones seems only able to stare gaping at him for nearly a minute. His mouth has actually opened in shock; something Jim always thought just an overdramatic description. 

“Were you dropped on your head as a small child? No, they made me look after you and I’d remember getting to do something that satisfying.” Bones coughs once in the air, but seems otherwise unfazed, propelled by his clear and firm conviction that Jim is mentally impaired.

“Bones, would you - ” He tries his level best to interrupt but Bones has a momentum going at this point, and speaks right over him.

“This is something else, Jim. The Snow Queen’s another level from your usual recklessness, and I’ll get that green-blooded hobgoblin of yours to knock you out cold and suffer the possible brain damage before you end up getting yourself killed!”

And with that, the thought of justifying his position, his plan, leaves Jim’s mind in a rush, replaced Bones’s words, echoing over and over in his head.

“Bones - ”

“No, Jim, don’t even try to justify this exercise in idiocy, because I’m not going to listen.”

Shaking his head, Jim holds up his hand, asking for space, or silence, or time. Asking for something. “Bones, what did you just call Spock?”

The thought of not being the only sane one in this ridiculous waking dream sticks in his throat, hurts like breathing this air does, a rough knot scraping its way down into him.

“Green-blooded hobgoblin? Jim, I call him that all the time,” Bones says, like it’s the most normal response in the world, and even Spock doesn’t seem fazed by this, though he’s Spock, who is habitually unfazed even in this freakshow.

“But why?” Jim presses, and Bones nearly snaps at him, his answer coming in a rush.

“Don’t try to distract me, Jim, and don’t make me explain the basics of Vulcan physiology to you, when I know that despite your best attempts you did actually learn that in xeno - ” He stops at the moment when Jim was beginning to hope, stops and clenches a hand to his forehead, tangles gloved fingers into his hair. 

“What the _hell_?” The words are a pained hiss as Bones sinks to his knees, his nose beginning to bleed, red dripping onto the snow beneath him.

“Bones!” Jim’s at his side in an instant but Bones just curls into himself, both hands pressed against his head. 

“My head,” he murmurs, and he’s starting to shake, tremors running up and down his frame, perceptible despite his thick winter coat. Just like Williams, and Jim does the only thing he can think of.

“What was I like when I was eight?” Spock is still beside him, body drawn tight with concern and confusion as Bones raises his head to meet Jim’s uncompromising gaze.

“You were…fuck, why can’t I think?” He’s still shaking, so Jim decides to wing it and bank on universal constants.

“They made you watch me and you hated it because I was always getting in and out of trouble and you wondered how I’d ever get out of childhood intact or how I’d gotten that far to begin with. I could charm everyone but you, which is probably why they made you watch me to begin with. Tell me what I was like at eight, Bones.”

A clear light returns to his eyes, something focused but empty, reflecting back the snow and the winter wind, but it’s only so deep. Bones stops shaking in his arms, collects himself enough to shudder to a stand.

“You were a pain in my ass, Jim. That much hasn’t changed. I don’t know what the hell that was, but it’s over. Probably my brain shutting down to protect itself from the rampant nonsense it was hearing.” Bones sounds confident enough, tromping over to check on his horse and brushing Spock’s concerned questions aside, but Jim can see the tension in the way he holds himself.

“I’m still doing this,” he says, mostly to Bones’s back and Spock’s questioning stare. “But there’s no reason to put us all in danger; you and Spock should stay in town.”

Bones throws him a tired look, resting his head against his horse’s neck for a moment. “My head still aches like nothing else. Don’t make me hurt you, Jim.”

The solid pressure of a hand on his shoulder lets him know Spock’s right behind him. “Indeed, Jim. I would not let you attempt such a dangerous plan alone.”

Without thinking about it, his free hand reaches up to cover Spock’s hand, tangling their fingers together. Even through his gloves it’s a reassuring presence, grounding him as he speaks.

“The trick is going to be fitting in, at least marginally, at Evigheden.”

Bones rubs one gloved hand against his forehead. “No one knows much about her court, but we all celebrate the solstice by her decree. She’s said to have some sort of celebration at Evigheden. Not that anyone knows the particulars, as no one is crazy enough to try and go there, but there’s that all the same.”

“That would not give us much time. Less than a week to find our way to Evigheden.”

It’s the perfect in. A little bit disturbingly perfect, actually, but he can’t worry about that now.

“It’ll work,” Jim says.

“You have always been terrible at situations requiring propriety, a strict observation of the mores of high society, or formal dancing. As your current plan involves all three, I tremble at our imminent doom.” Jim half-glares at Spock. He should probably be insulted, but it may well be true.

“Regardless, you seem intent in this, and I have long since learned the uselessness of standing in your way.”

He remembers that speech; Spock had said something similar to him about two months into his captaincy of the _Enterprise_ , when Jim had come up with a plan that, in retrospect, was pretty close to suicidal. It had meant something then, to know that Spock trusted him, and it still does.

Universal constants. They haven’t failed him yet, and he tightens his grip on Spock’s hand.

“Let’s get started.”

-


	3. evigheden [part two]

evigheden [part two]

 

-

It isn’t quite as easy as all that: Bones still isn’t completely convinced the best course of action isn’t to lock Jim in a small room until he makes sense. Besides, the sun’s beginning to set, so it’s only going to get colder. They’re not heading anywhere right now except back to the house.

Bones starts into him as soon as they’re through the door of the house.

“So, let's ignore the getting inside and not dying horribly bit for a moment – you want to explain how we even get to Evigheden?” Bones hangs up his brown coat and shakes his head, shedding snow from his hair. Spock does the same, though his hair settles back into place perfectly afterwards.

“While McCoy is being unnecessarily vehement, he is correct. We would not know how to begin our journey.”

There’s a wide table in the center room; Jim sits himself down in one of the chairs next to it and watches Bones tense. This, at least, is familiar.

“I’m not ‘being unnecessarily vehement.’ I’m trying to point out the massive flaws in Jim’s plans before he goes off and gets himself killed.”

Spock settles into the chair next to Jim. “A noble endeavor.” 

“Don’t even start. There’s a good reason why no one goes near Evigheden.”

“Is there? No one even tries, right?” Jim asks. It would be the first he’s heard of it.

Bones joins them at the table. “Because no one’s suicidal, Jim. Except you, apparently. And us. I think you’re contagious. I’d have thought we’d be immune to you by now, but clearly not.”

“Thanks, Bones. That’s a comparison that raises my spirits. My point stands – no one goes near this place. No one sees the Snow Queen and yet everyone’s afraid of her. Explain to me how that even works.” The words come out quick and sharp, edged with anger and frustration. 

“I believe that it ‘works’ because the displays of her power are sufficient enough to discourage dissent.” Spock’s all lean lines and calm words, perched lightly in his chair. 

Jim presses the point. He’ll push this as far as he has to. “But you don’t know. It’s an entire society built on ghosts and whispers.”

“Jim, it’s your society,” Bones says.

“It’s still wrong. Can’t you see - ”

Spock interrupts them, stopping their almost-argument before it could properly begin. “This is hardly a productive discourse. If we are to contemplate the viability of this plan, we must objectively examine its faults.”

Bones drops his head to the table; it hits the wood with a quiet thunk.

“That’s not helping, Bones,” Jim says, though he’s almost tempted to do the same.

“I feel better, so there’s the value of your medical diagnosis.” The table muffles his words but not by that much. Jim leans back in his chair.

“The two of you are right, though. We need a way to get to Evigheden. We need, you know, a _map_ or something ridiculous like that.”

Rolled out flat, the map Williams gave him only covers about a third of the tabletop. However, the detail in it is staggering. For a moment Jim swears he can see each individual house when he looks at the town they’re in now. He can almost see the snow-covered tiles of the roof of this house, the smoke coming from the chimney and the small shape of the barn next to it. 

The image fades when he blinks, and he’s not sure it ever was there at all. What remains, however, is a clear route tracing a way past this town, across the frozen river, and through the forest. It charts a path clear to Evigheden.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” The soft words break the silence between the three of them, and Bones reaches out to trace the path on the map.

“It appears to head straight to Evigheden, although I have never heard of such a route. Considering it travels straight through the three forests, that is understandable.”

The forest isn’t marked, but there’s clearly only one of them, and Jim says as much. 

Bones shakes his head and points to the mass of trees marked on the map. “You were concussed this morning and clearly you’re still cracked in the head. Three parts of one forest – trust me, I’ve heard it’s pretty obvious when the trees change…good god, we’re actually going to do this nonsense, aren’t we?”

Bones stares at Jim and Jim stares right back at Bones. Spock stares at the both of them, and the entire tableau holds for a moment, as still as picture, framed by the wooden walls of the house and the soft crackle-hiss of the fire in the hearth.

“Fuck, fine.” Bones stands, steps away from the table. “The two of you get some sleep. I’ll pack; it’d take you forever and a day to find anything in this house anyway. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Bones,” he calls out to Bones’ retreating back. 

\- 

They’re up the stairs and in the same room that he woke up in before it occurs to Jim what going to get some sleep entails in bizarro land. He’s not at his best, but Jim feels he ought to be given a pass, considering the circumstances. 

Of course, Spock’s acting like all this is normal – because, to him, it is. He doesn’t have to worry about what’ll happen after Jim valiantly defeats the Snow Queen and hopefully frees them all from the clutches of bizarro land. 

“Jim. There is something I would like to ask you.” Jim’s pretty sure that the Vulcan didn’t deliberately place himself in the doorway to cut off any hope of escape for him. “You have lived here your entire life. Why are you so insistent on now confronting the Snow Queen?” 

Jim settles against the bed, feeling the scratch of woolen blankets against the back of his neck.

For a moment, he contemplates telling Spock the truth: because they belong on a space ship and this can’t be real, because he thinks it’s the only way to get them all out of this crazy place, because this entire world is fucking with him and he’s tired of it. 

If he did that, though, Spock would probably just think he was joking, maybe think he was still muddled from the knock to his head and call Bones to check on him. And maybe Spock would think he was telling the truth, would remember and then he’d start to shake and fall to the floor, bleeding.

“Because I have to.” 

Spock is a solemn figure dressed in dark clothes and his hands are almost unnaturally pale against the shadows in the room. He moves to sit next to Jim, but Jim doesn’t stop staring at his hands.

“Spock – can you do me a favor?” When Spock nods the architecture of the column of his neck changes, shadows shifting under the dim light. Jim makes himself look away.

“Tell me how we met – you know I know how it goes but for a minute let’s just pretend I don’t, alright?”

Spock shifts next to him; the motion brushes their shoulders together. “I had accompanied my father and mother to an official function in honor of the victims and survivors of the fire that destroyed the Kelvin building. Your mother was, of course, in attendance and you and your brother had accompanied her. You were sixteen but your knowledge of pyrotechnics was considerable; it took four officials to extinguish the flame that engulfed the dessert table.”

“That was incredibly typical of me.” And universal constants really do hold true; Jim had lit an astonishing number of things on fire when he was young. 

“In your defense, many of the desserts were doused with a remarkable amount of high-proof alcohol.”

That would probably be why he’d have lit that table on fire, though he can only speculate. “And this led to instant friendship?”

“Actually, this led to Doctor McCoy treating a first-degree burn on your arm and your mother yelling quite loudly. My mother; however, thought it and you were quite amusing and arranged for us to meet in a less formal setting. I then pointed out the flaws in your striking mechanism, which led to an escalating contest between the two of us to create a better model.”

Typical: still competition but of a different sort. He can’t really imagine it, the whole idea of growing into a friendship with Spock instead of being thrown from almost-enemies to partners. 

It sounds almost like what the other-Spock and the other-Jim had, in the world that isn’t theirs. It sounds nice and boring, pyrotechnics aside.

Spock stands, suddenly enough that it takes Jim by surprise. Of course, that surprise is nothing compared to the shock when Spock strips off his shirt. He knows how this ought to go – he ought to be polite and look away, but screw it. He’s dealt with a lot today and if he’s going to get half of a free show here he may as well take it.

Besides, there’s something suitably fascinating about the revealed expanse of pale skin, the lean lines of Spock’s chest and torso, the dusting of dark hair he can barely see in the shadows of the room. Spock’s standing there half-clothed and Jim feels like the vulnerable one. Jim’s not sure how that works, and as Spock turns, folding his shirt and placing it on a chair, he’s a bit too distracted by the play of muscles in Spock’s back to properly care.

Much as he may not want to, he draws the line when Spock begins to undo his trousers, looks away and stumbles to his feet. He casts about for the discarded sleeping clothes from this morning and scrambles into them. 

One bed, though. One bed that Spock’s already climbing into. He can do this, Jim thinks, and he’ll just have to hope Spock doesn’t strangle him when it’s all over. He can’t properly be blamed for this, after all – not for the leg that brushes against his when he settles next to Spock, or for the arm that winds around his waist. 

It’s a position pretty similar to how he woke up this morning and if Jim pretends that it means something real for a few moments, no one has to know.

He counts off the silent seconds before Spock speaks, his words ghosting over Jim’s ear. 

“You are decided upon this course of action, Jim?”

He’s more than decided. He’s intent, he’s resolved, he’s locked photon torpedoes on this course of action and he’s ready to fire away. 

“Yeah. I’m decided.”

Spock doesn’t say anything to that, but his arm tightens around Jim. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the edge of Spock’s shoulder, a brush of white as pale as a ghost in the dark room.

They don’t speak again and Jim lies there, feeling the slow rise and fall of Spock’s chest and the rapid flutter of pulse. It’s a long time before he falls asleep.

-

He wakes up alone, and the room is cold enough to bring back memories of all the things he was glad to leave behind when he ditched Iowa. He doubts it would happen, considering the snow, but if he encounters a cornfield at any point on this adventure, he may have to have words with whoever’s in charge.

Strong words, like _fuck_ the floor is cold. There’s a pile of clothing laid out on a chair along with a pair of black boots he recognizes as his own and he climbs into them. It’s heavier gear than yesterday and absolutely everything seems to be either made of wool or lined with fur of some kind. There’s no one downstairs and he’s sure to start sweating soon, but he appreciates it the second he steps outside, pulling his coat closed against the morning chill. It’s only a few dozen meters to the barn, but even that is enough to shock him fully awake.

Both Spock and Bones are in the barn, along with three neat piles of gear. Jim can identify some of it – camping gear, cold weather equipment, bundles of food. 

“Good. Thought we’d have to go get you for your own insane quest at this rate,” Bones says by way of greeting. Jim responds with a wave that turns into a less than polite gesture. 

“You could have woken me earlier. That’s allowed, Bones. I wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer the indignities of prepping our gear all by yourself.”

Spock leads his brown horse out of his stall. Jim’s got no clue what the horse’s name is, and no real way to ask something he should clearly know the answer to.

“The fault is mine, Doctor. I thought Jim would benefit from the additional sleep to help him recover - ”

“You can stop right there. I do not want to know, damn it.” Bones interrupts; Spock ignores him.

“ – From the strenuous events of yesterday and the injury he sustained that morning.”

“We can hope it helped.” Bones begins to prepare his horse, placing supplies in saddlebags. While he watches his own mare stamps in her stall, reaching forward as he takes the hint and approaches. She butts her head into his chest, and Jim pats her neck. At least someone here seems glad to see him.

For someone who wasn’t at all enthusiastic about this mission, Bones seems to know more than either Spock or Jim. Of course, his horse probably knows more than Jim right now, so that’s not a ringing endorsement. 

“So once we get into the forest, we need to follow certain rules. Stay on the path, don’t go off the path for any reason, and stay on the path. If we find things on the path we need to go through, we go through them. Don’t leave the path for any reason, and stay on the path.” Bones ticks the points off on his fingers until he runs out of space on one hand.

“Bones, I get this feeling you’re telling us to stay on the path.”

Bones is restless enough that his horse picks up on it, shifting beneath him. 

“Don’t even start, Jim. The stories might not agree on much, but they all agree that going off the path is an abysmally bad idea.”

“We will be certain to stay on the path, Doctor.” Spock looks remarkably at ease on his horse. Jim’s sure they’ve this crazy world to thank for that; somehow, he doubts there were very many horses on Vulcan.

“We’d better.” 

-

The trees change once they cross the river. 

He doesn’t notice right away; everything’s covered in snow as it is, so it takes him a few moments to realize the hints of bark and branch showing through aren’t brown but silver. All of it, every tree trunk and every reaching branch, has been cast of the same shining silver. It’s the silver of polished jewelry, impossibly bright, but the trees look nothing like metal. There’s nothing cold, nothing _dead_ about them.

Pulling his horse to a halt, all he can do is stare at the forest around them. What a world this is, where it’s always winter and the forest is made of silver. He’s thought this place strange since he woke up to it, but this is the first time he’s thought it beautiful.

“The silver forest.” Spock brings his horse to a halt next to Jim. “I have read about it in books and heard of it in stories.”

“The trees just grow like this? Or does someone do this to them?”

Spock shakes his head. “I would not know. However, it does appear to be a natural phenomenon, insofar as such a thing is naturally possible.”

Things work differently here. He forgets, sometimes, and then he remembers. His mare noses at a sapling poking out of the half-meter or so of snow on the ground, apparently considering it before deciding it’s not to her taste.

They ride on as the sun reflects off of the silver trees around them and the day shades into the evening. The trees reflect lights with hints of red and gold before they stop.

“We’ll need to stop and set up camp soon.” 

Spock stands in his stirrups, eyes fixed above the silver spread of trees and snow. “That may not be necessary. I believe I see smoke up ahead; while I do not know who would make their home this far into the forest, it may be better shelter than what we carry.”

“Let’s find out.” Jim urges his horse ahead, and Iowa charges eagerly through the snowy path, nearly unseating him. 

The house they approach shouldn’t be possible, but that seems to be the running trend for anything and everything in this world. It’s made up of strange angles, all intersecting, and doesn’t defy the laws of gravity, it disregards their very existence, layers of stairs and balconies all folded in on themselves, emerging from the heart of the ramshackle house like vectors of light traveling outwards from a star. 

“Hello, travelers!” A voice breaks through the cold air, and one of the doors opens on the near side of the house. Jim knows that voice, the thick accent coloring the words, and it makes a certain sort of sense.

If Scotty were going to live in any sort of house, it would be a house like this.

“This house is impossible,” Spock says and Jim’s grateful that someone else thinks so. Scotty bursts through one of the doorways on the ground floor of the house, rushing out to meet them.

“We don’t find many travelers this far into the woods. Well, we’re not that far, but we’re far enough. You know how it goes.”

“I really don’t,” Jim mutters. 

“Scotty! Would you get them inside, already? We haven’t had any company worth having in forever and a half.” Jim knows this voice too, and Gaila’s red hair and green skin are impossibly bright as she skips out to meet them.

“Have you traveled far? Not that distances mean as much as you’d think once you enter the wood, but it might still matter to you.”

“Far enough,” Bones says, and Scotty nods at them. 

“Well, that settles it. You’re clearly tired and this bit of the wood’s not the best place to be in after dark, so you’ll just have to come inside.”

Scotty’s unconventional house has an almost conventional barn, and they stable the horses next to an irritable black-and-white horse that, in all honesty, looks a bit like a cow. 

“What do you mean, ‘not the best place to be in after dark?’” Kirk asks as they’re heading back to the house. 

Gaila shrugs, navigating the snow well enough despite the disadvantage of her skirts. “Some of the things that live in the silver forest can get a bit nasty. You’d probably have been alright, unless you got eaten and you wouldn’t have been in much of a position to mind then.”

“You are a veritable ray of slightly off-putting sunshine, lady.” Jim ignores Bones’ comment in favor of focusing on Gaila’s.

“Eaten by what? I haven’t seen any animals since we entered the silver forest.”

She turns quickly enough that he skirts swirl around her, pulling free of the snow. “You wouldn’t. They don’t tend to be seen unless they want to and generally, you don’t want them to want to.” She pulls open the door to the house – one of them, that is – ushering them inside.

“Damned impossible nonsense. This house doesn’t make any more sense on the inside than it does on the outside.” Jim thinks Bones might be upset because he banged his legs on the impossible table when walking down the impossible steps.

Inside, the walls are lined with an array of machines that Jim can’t recognize, much less identify. Everything moves or ticks and he can see the interplay of gears in some of the objects closest to him. There are stairways that lead up and down and, quite possibly, sideways. 

Scotty looks up as they approach, long knitted hat perched on his head at an angle Jim can only describe as ‘jaunty,’ fiddling delicately with some twisted contortion of metal on the table before him. Jim recognizes the hat: Scotty wasn’t fond of much form Delta-Vega, but he kept that hat. “I can’t help you there, Sir. I make a point of it to believe six impossible things before breakfast. On good days, I can get in another half-dozen before lunch, but that’s an entirely different matter, and a far more difficult number to manage.”

And some part of him knows that it will do him no good, but Jim can’t quite help himself. “But that’s the same number. Six of one is a half-dozen of the other.” 

This must be how Spock feels all the time, surrounded by people saying things so patently illogical and yet still believing what they say.

There’s a laugh behind him as Gaila fairly skips around him to join Scotty on their workbench, a set of impossibly tiny screwdrivers in her hand. 

“The same number? He’s cute, Scotty, but he’s not that bright.”

“Hey!” he protests and reminds himself he is not allowed to argue with members of his crew when they’re playing out roles in a psychically-induced fairytale hallucination. It’s in the regs somewhere, he’s sure. If Spock were himself, he could ask him. 

But he can’t.

“Don’t take offense, young sir. Quite like a king, you are,” Scotty says to him.

“Oh, that’s it, Scotty!” Gaila exclaims. “Just like a king - the king was in the counting house, you know. Counting out, counting out. You’re just like that.”

Well, there went any hope of coherency from this little encounter. Clearly, he expects too much. 

Scotty nods, excited and snaps his fingers at Gaila. “You’ve got it girl. Just like a captain, but here the play’s the thing.”

“Misappropriated gender.” Gaila slaps Scotty lightly on his head, knocking his hat forward. It slips and covers one of his eyes. Jim’s impressed it didn’t fall off entirely. He’s also confused and is pretty sure that Shakespeare would object to being abused like that.

In all probability, he doesn’t want to attract their attention, but Scotty and Gaila don’t make the most sense normally. It’s a bit terrifying to consider the amount of damage they could do in this setting.

“Have you always lived here, in this forest?” Spock actually asks the question, though Jim doesn’t think he’d have managed a better opening gambit.

Scotty tilts his head. “Oh, long enough to have forgotten living anywhere else.”

“We haven’t really kept track,” Gaila chimes in.

“A considerable, if imprecise, length of time then,” Spock continues. Jim’s not sure where he’s going with this, but Scotty doesn’t seem to mind. 

“It’s been long enough.” 

“And in your time here, have you noticed anything of particular merit concerning the Snow Queen or Evigheden?” 

Jim, Gaila and Scotty seem to grasp Spock’s aim at roughly the same instant, with varying reactions. Gaila’s so excited she can’t stand still, Scotty almost falls off his chair, and Jim sits and enjoys the warmth that comes with Spock’s support. 

Bones ignores them.

“You’re planning to take on the Snow Queen? That’s either stupidly brave or bravely stupid of you.”

Bones turns away from his examination of the various trinkets lining the walls of Scotty’s impossible house. “If you figure out which, be sure and let us know.”

“You have no objections to such a course of action?” Spock asks, and Scotty replies with a helpless shrug, spreading his hands before him.

“I can’t imagine it going well for you, but someone’s got to stand up to her eventually.”

It’s hardly a ringing endorsement, but Jim’s been settling for less in this universe. Bones drops into one of the empty seats at the table with a sigh.

“And thanks to Jim, that ‘someone’ is going to be us.” 

“You do, of course, have the option of returning to the village, Doctor,” Spock says, and to Jim’s ears his voice sounds almost snide.

“Like hell I would. Dammit Spock – I may not like this crazy plan of Jim's and I may think it’s going to get us all killed but I’m hardly going to back out and leave you two to the tender mercies of fate.”

“We could help!” Gaila chimes in. 

The disbelief must show through on his face, because Gaila leaps forward to reassure him. 

“We really could help. If you’re going to take on the Snow Queen, you might as well have a weapon for it.”

Scotty brightens at the thought. “It’s a fine idea, Gaila. Off the top of my head, I’d think a sword for the young sir, but that’s not really his sort of thing, is it?”

Gaila laughs. “Oh, go easy on him, Montgomery. I’m sure the young sir knows how to parry and thrust.” She draws slim but strong fingers down the front of his coat, tangling them in the fastenings of the heavy coat.

Spock tenses next to him and Jim wonders how much of everyone’s personality is actually bleeding through, how much the world is just inventing. 

Gaila tilts her head, considering Spock. “Aren’t you the possessive one? It’s cute.”

“‘Cute?’ That’s not a word I’d have thought to hear applied to Spock,” Bones says, and Gaila turns a bright and sunny smile on him. 

“Don’t worry. I think you’re cute too.”

“Lady, I am nothing of the sort.”

She laughs and reaches out to flick him lightly on the nose. Bones flinches back, but he’s not quick enough to avoid it entirely. “Definitely adorable. If you three didn’t have a quest to finish, I’d show you my feelings on ‘adorable.’”

“Heaven help us.” He ducks further away and Gaila drops into an impromptu curtsy, skirts rustling about her legs. 

“Doesn’t much look like the doctor’s interested, Gaila.” Scotty’s moved to the side of the room, digging out the contents of a plain wooden chest. He pulls the objects out of it one by one and piles them to the side, a collection of knives and nuts and bolts. The pile keeps growing, until it’s bigger than the chest itself and still Scotty reaches inside.

“This damned thing. Whatever you want is always at the very bottom of it, and I can never remember exactly what I’ve got in here to start with.”

“That chest cost us a pretty penny, Scotty.”

He grunts as he lifts out a narrow instrument well over a meter long, one end of it lit up with a flickering illumination. “And a few that weren’t nearly so nice to look at. Stick this on the wall, will you? Isn’t doing anyone any good in there.” He holds out the…whatever it is…to Gaila, who fairly skips over to him to take it.

“What does that do, anyway?” Jim asks and hopes this isn’t something he was supposed to know already. It could be fantasy style toaster, for all he knows.

“It makes metalworks sing. We’ve precious little chance or cause to use it.” Scotty goes back to pulling items out: a book with too many pages, a clock with too few parts, machinery that moves by itself, delicate clockwork automations that shiver and twist as he sets them on the floor.

“This is a job and a half, finding this thing.” No one bothers with a response. Judging from the rapt attention Spock and Bones are paying the impossible trunk, they’re just as interested in the contents as Jim is. Gaila, on the other hand, pays no attention to Scotty. She reaches up and rests the narrow instrument in a set of hooks on the wall.

It looks innocuous enough until she runs one hand down it, and it _hums_ , a low-pitched emanation he feels more than hears, resonating through him. It’s trapped in his skeleton, ricocheting in his rib cage and tangling up the air in his lungs. There’s an answering echo from the vast multitude of metal lining the walls of this house and even after that too fades he can still feel it.

“There you are!” Scotty cries his triumph as he pulls one final object out of the trunk. “Damn near the last thing in there, too. Right then, this might be more your speed.” He places it squarely in Jim’s hands. 

At very first glance it looks like a phaser. Even when he’s holding it he needs a moment to realize what it truly is. A delicate revolver with clockwork machinery inside, an impossibly intricate interplay of moving parts. A six-chambered revolver. He’s heard of guns like this, crude propulsion mechanics but he’s never held one before.

It’s cold in his hands – but everything here is cold. There’s a grace to it, despite its heavy weight. Sleek lines of metal, thoroughly archaic and dangerous. Capable of hurting, of killing. Dangerous.

“She’s a real beauty,” Scotty comments from the sidelines, examining Jim as he examines the revolver in turn. The parts tick away under his gaze, precise and delicate movements.

“The gun’s female?” Bones asks, and the disdain on his face and in his voice is plain to see and to hear. Spock says nothing, observing.

“All guns are female, silly. It’s the way things work.” Gaila’s voice is heavy with satisfaction, content like a cat in her own potential lethalness. 

“Aye, it’s the way of it.”

It’s beautiful and it feels alive in his hands. Perhaps that’s just the clockwork mechanisms ticking away inside it, cogs and gears working together. He hopes so. He fits one hand around the gun, feels the cold metal of the trigger against his finger. All six chambers are empty but he keeps the gun muzzle pointed towards the floor all the same. 

Objectively, Jim knows a phaser is much more dangerous than any propulsion-style weapon but there’s a menace to this revolver he’s never felt from a phaser. 

“I’ve some bullets around here somewhere. We’ll find them, once we put all of this nonsense away.” Scotty sweeps his arm out to encompass the mess spilling across the floor. “But it’s late enough and you’d best catch some sleep.”

-

Spock’s the first thing he sees when he wakes up, which means he must have shifted in his sleep. Jim’s hand rests in the space between them; palm turned upwards, the edge of his fingers brushing against Spock’s chest.

It’s strange. He’s seen Spock knocked unconscious or in a Bones-and-hypospray induced sleep, but this is the first time he’s ever seen him properly asleep. He doesn’t look younger or gentler or whatever people are supposed to look like when they’re asleep; he just looks like Spock, eyes closed, breathing softly in and out, the perfect black fall of his hair slightly disheveled.

“You know, none of this shit is really fair.” Spock doesn’t stir and it’s just as well. Their lives have never been one for fair, after all.

There are other things he wants to say, and he can feel the words welling up inside his chest. They press against his ribcage, forcing all the air out of him and he can barely breathe. 

He pushes them back down and turns his wrist instead, until his palm is pressed flat against Spock’s chest and lets it rest there as Spock sleeps. 

-

Jim’s up once he sees Spock starting to wake, up and dressed and outside. It merits him a look from Spock - questioning, worried and a little frustrated - that can’t bode well, but there isn’t much he can do about that, so he helps Bones with the horses. 

Scotty breaks the tension, presenting three bullets that he hands over with an apology that it’s all they seem to have. 

“You’ll just have to have very good aim, then,” he says, and behind him Gaila makes exaggerated gun motions with her hand, firing invisible bullets at Scotty.

They slide easily into the revolver chambers and are reassuringly silent, unlike the shifting, ticking gun that houses them.

They get set to leave early: Gaila helps, talking nonsense to McCoy’s horse, somehow comfortable in the cold morning despite the impressive corset and tangle of skirts. Scotty’s more sensibly dressed and still shivering as he directs them. 

“Alright. You’ll want to head straight out the path past the house. You’ll know you’re on the right track when the forest changes again. It’ll do that once more before you get where you need to go, but pay it no mind. It’s just its way.”

Jim swings into the saddle, his horse shifting under him. “As long as they don’t suddenly come alive and decide to throw a fit, I’m sure we’ll manage the trees.”

Scotty tips his hat backwards on his head. “I don’t know why you’d go and give them ideas like that.” He keeps a watchful gaze fixed to the forest around them, and the branches suddenly feel too close, hemming them all in.

“Best of luck,” he finishes, still watching the trees.

Jim lets one hand fall to the makeshift holster they constructed and the gun inside it. “Thanks for the weapon.”

Scotty waves off his thanks; Gaila just waves at them, enthusiastically and at length. “Don’t bother yourself any over that. You know, I think it was supposed to be yours.”

They ride out.

-


	4. evigheden [part three]

evigheden [part three]

-

The trees change again before midday, the silver color shifting into gold. It’s small at first: a twig or branch out of place, but the change escalates until entire trees are made of gold, out of place against all the silver trees. It doesn’t take long, however, until the silver trees are the outnumbered ones, until they disappear entirely and the entire forest is awash in colors of snow-covered gold. 

Not just one shade of gold, either, like the silver forest was all one identical mass of silver. When they stop for midday meal and to check their map, he takes the time to properly look and it’s clear how different the trees are from each other. Bright or dull, brilliantly yellow or tinted with red: each tree showcases its own shade of gold. 

“We don’t know anything about the three forests then? I know I asked, but surely there’s got to be some story about them.” When Jim speaks, Spock nudges his horse over towards Jim, the two horses close enough to make Jim nervous. Luckily, the brown’s easygoing and Iowa only flicks her ears back once. 

Spock takes a moment to consider, staring straight ahead. There’s nothing to see except Bones forging forward a good five or so meters ahead of them.

“There are a number of stories, most of which conflict or contradict each other.”

Knowing something is always better than knowing nothing. “Such as? Don’t leave me hanging here, Spock.”

Spock quirks an eyebrow at him and the expression is so perfectly familiar it hurts. “You do not appear to be ‘hanging’ from anything, Jim, and I am not going anywhere.”

“I refuse to believe you’ve never heard that expression before, Spock.”

“On the contrary, Jim, I am entirely unfamiliar with it,” Spock says, clearly lying (or rather implying or equivocating or whatever Spock would call it to make himself feel better) his Vulcan ass off. 

“Fine. We can debate the use of colloquialisms later. If there are a number of stories about this forest, do any in particular come to mind?”

Spock doesn’t make a very good storyteller – too empirical by half, always unwilling to stretch the truth for dramatic effect – but he is thorough. “Some believe the forest was spelled to take this appearance, possibly by the Snow Queen herself when she assumed the throne. However, as there is no one who can remember a time before her reign, such a deduction is baseless and thus ignored. Everything else is similarly speculation.”

Spock pauses and looks at the shifting colors of gold in the trees around them. On some leaves the dusting of snow is so faint that Jim can still see it, like a light shining through water.

“Even the most common theories contradict themselves. The forest has always been here; the forest is unrecognized until someone travels through it. The colors of the forest are real or they are simply an illusion and all of this is as brown and green as any tree at the village. Some believe that the forest is a trap and the silver, gold and diamond trees are part of that, meant to lure a traveler off the path.”

“Diamond?”

“It is the last stage of the forest, after this one. The trees are said to be made of a crystalline material similar in structure and composition to the mineral.”

That will be something to see; an entire forest glittering crystal in the sunlight. 

It’ll be some time before they reach it.

-

When they first see the garden the sun’s beginning to set, the colors bleeding into the snow. Everything’s tinted red and gold but the flowers seem to stand out all the more despite the colors in the sky and snow. He can't see where it ends, if it ends. The snow obscures his vision, but as far as he knows the flowers could go one forever, a sea of color against the white.

Roses. There are roses blooming in this snow, perfectly vibrant and alive despite the cold. They slow their horses to a walk, passing past bushes of blossoms so red they look like they’re bleeding. 

For a moment, he wonders if they are.

In the center of the clearing a frozen fountain is covered with climbing vines and half-furled flowers. They’re a pink so pale that if it weren’t for all the snow to provide contrast he’d think they were white. 

Yellow roses dot a bench across from them. Buds of a velvety blue-black fit to match the color of his coat wind their way about a statue of a woman, wrapped about her waist, climbing her trailing down to her wrist. He can’t see her face and doesn’t want to. 

After all, there’s no telling who she might be.

Bones calls the two of them over. “There’s some shelter up ahead. It won’t be the warmest place ever, but it ought to do. And nothing in it ticks.” He claps his hands together, and the snap of leather hitting leather is as loud as a shot. Jim’s hand immediately flies to the revolver at his side, as if summoned there.

The stone walls are colder than the snow around them, if such a thing’s even possible. He’s learning that most impossible things are possible in this strange world. It won’t be that warm and it won’t be comfortable, but the walls will keep out the wind. The horses huddle together: his is the only mare of the group, and she gives the two others a disgruntled glare before allowing them close. 

Bones manages to get a fire started with some supplies he brought, sending Spock and Jim out to collect anything else they can burn. Luckily, there’s a pile of cut rose bushes and the clutter he’d expect from a garden to feed the flame.

Of course, cut rose bushes means that someone’s doing the actual cutting. Jim wonders if it’s someone he knows.

Spock may not be able to give him the probability for it, but he’s still Spock and thus capable of pointing out a flaw in Jim’s plan.

“Jim, there are two points I wish to address with you,” he begins as Jim’s staring at the remnants of supper. The food so far has makes him remember being young and camping. It’d sucked then too. 

“Go ahead.” He poked another branch onto the fire, avoiding the thorns still dotting it. 

“At current, our plan is to enter Evigheden under the guise of attending the celebration held by the Snow Queen and use the celebration to bypass security measures and confront her?”

“Yep,” he confirms easily. He’s starting to like this plan. It’s simple, efficient, and the universe appears to be conspiring with it, instead of against it.

“Very well. In light of the weapon you recently acquired, are you planning to kill the Snow Queen?”

In a roundabout way, Jim has killed people before. He’s the captain of a constitution class starship: whenever he makes a mistake, someone tends to die. And as much as he might try to claim otherwise, he’s not perfect. He’s killed people in combat, and he’s killed people to protect his ship and his crew. He can understand Spock’s point: from his perspective this must appear less like self-defense and more like calculated murder.

And none of them are murderers. 

“We’re going to make her stop.” There’s a certain finality to the words, and Bones picks up on it.

“That sounds like we’re going to go to Evigheden and gun someone down.”

“This gun and the bullets in it – it won’t kill her. I don’t want to kill her; I don’t want to kill anybody. She’s not something we can kill with bullets. The most I’m hoping for here is to get her to stop.”

Bones doesn’t let the matter drop. “Jim, two days ago you hit your head so hard you barely knew who any of us were. You didn’t know anything about the Snow Queen, and now you know how to kill her or not?”

“Bones, it’ll work. I’m not going in there to murder anyone. She’s - ”

Here’s where it gets tricky, he thinks, because there’s so much he can’t say. He can’t say that none of this is real and the random fight-the-system blips he’s been getting from people say that going after the Snow Queen is the only way out. It would make his life a lot easier if he could say any of that, for the three seconds before Spock and McCoy started convulsing from psychic backlash or whatever took over Williams in the map shop.

So he gets as close as he can to the truth.

“She’s a part of the story too. And there are rules to all of this. I think I’m just starting to realize how many.”

There’s no response to that from either Bones or Spock. Both of them have are strangely distant and in their eyes, where he’s used to seeing sharp calculations, he only sees dull and clumsy mathematics. 

“Spock? What’s your other point?” His words are loud, spoken with an even and deliberate stress. He keeps himself tending to the fire, keeping his hands busy and away from either man.

“…My apologies, Jim. I believe my attention was momentarily elsewhere. If you would repeat your question?” In tone and diction, it sounds like something Spock would say to him on the bridge of the ship, except that Spock would never need Jim to repeat something, would never give anything less than his full attention.

“Your other point, Spock. You said you had two.”

“Yes. Thank you for reminding me. As one of the cruxes of our plan involves formal dancing, I must ask if you have any familiarity with the dances that may be performed at the event. You are not highly competent at formal dancing.”

That what Spock says is true is neither here nor there. “Sounds like a challenge, Spock. Come on then, let’s see how well _you_ can manage.” 

Spock rises to his feet with a grace that suggests he will not only manage but excel. Bones begins to laugh.

“Excellent. At least I’ll get some entertainment before we all die messily trying to take out the Snow Queen.”

What follows is one of the more thoroughly painful experiences of Jim’s life, and Bones is sure to let him know it. The running commentary, as Spock says, is “impressive in its devotion to detail and colorful descriptive phrases.”

Jim gets his own small revenge when Bones realizes that even with the fire, they’ll be better off sleeping in close quarters.

“I just want to state it right now that I’m doing this because it’s marginally better than freezing to death.” Bones shivers even with the bedroll and blankets. The fire’s banked with enough wood to keep throughout the night, but all of that feels insignificant in the face of the driving snow. 

He reaches out and pulls Bones closer towards the two of them. “Somehow, I’ll resist the urge to molest you in your sleep. It’ll be hard, but I’ll manage.”

“The two of you better just keep it to yourselves for one night. Or I’ll kill you both.”

Jim pokes backward with his elbow, jabbing Spock gently beneath his ribs and cutting off the remark they all knew was coming. 

“Just go to sleep.”

-

He dreams for the first time since coming here, and it’s a nightmare.

He’s back on the _Enterprise_ , running through the corridors of the ship. The ship is empty because the ship is dead: full power, no damage, pristine as the day they launched her but all of the corridors are empty.

None of the doors will open and no one’s there because no one’s left alive.

“You should wake up now.” The voice jerks him out of sleep and he shudders into wakefulness, Spock already awake and tense at his side. 

“Your fire burned down. Thank you; that was a good use of the deadwood. I’d been wondering what to do with it.” Sulu walks into the stone shed; his coat sweeping against the back of his knees and he’s carrying a pair of pruning shears in gloveless hands. 

Jim reaches over and pokes Bones awake as Spock rises to his feet. It had been cold enough that they’d slept in the clothes they had on for the day, and he is unexpectedly glad of it.

“Are you travelers?” Sulu asks, but Spock answers and counters with his own question in one swoop.

“We are. Are you the caretaker for this garden?”

“In a way. I’m here because it’s here. It might be the other way around; I’ve never been too sure of the particulars.” He steps back outside, into the snow. “Excuse me. The roses don’t quite tend themselves.”

The horses shake their heads as they come out of their half-doze. Jim leads his mare a few steps away from the other two, his right hand tangling in her thick coat. 

“May I ask you a question?” Spock says to Sulu once they’re out of the shelter. The horses stare at the lot of them, probably wondering why they have to stand around outside carrying gear and getting snowed on instead of resting inside. Bones has a similar expression on his face as he stands next to them. 

Jim doesn’t really have an answer for any of them. 

Sulu looks over at him, tending to one of the larger rose bushes. It’s taller than any of them and sports flowers that shift colors as Jim watches.

“By all means, ask away.” 

“How is it even possible flowers grow here?”

“They grow here because they’re meant to. It’s their place. You’d have to ask them for a more precise answer.” Sulu carefully trims the bush before him, petals shaking to the ground. They’re yellow when they fall and stay that way, until they’re covered by the snow, disappearing under the relentless white.

Still snowing. He wonders if it’s part of the rules that the snow never seems to pile up any higher or get any deeper, for all that it never stops. 

“Even here, I do not believe that to be a sensible statement. The flowers cannot speak.”

Sulu smiles at him, as if Spock had just said something particularly funny. “Things don’t work along sensible lines in the woods. The flowers belong here.” He pauses in his trimming to look at Spock. 

“Don’t you have somewhere you belong?”

When Spock doesn’t have anything to say to that, Jim can’t help but wonder how much is the same here, how much holds true. Is Spock’s mother still dead?

Is his father?

“But who does this garden belong to?” Jim asks. “If you’re the caretaker, who are you taking care of it for?”

Sulu moves to another rose bush, one that comes to his waist before branching out into twisting patterns. “

Maybe not, but there is something Jim wants to know. “Why are you here?”

It’s a simple enough question, but Spock looks at Jim when he says it, examines him with the intensity he tends to reserve for laboratory work. He doesn’t entirely meet that gaze, waiting for Sulu’s response, but he feels the weight of it. There’s something about this moment that feels suspended, stretched beyond the confines of an instant. He doesn’t know how time works in this place, if it follows the same rules and obeys the tenants of relativity. It may well be possible that the moment does last longer than it ought to, and it feels like minutes or hours before Spock looks away.

“For the roses. Someone has to take care of them. A rose for remembrance?” Sulu holds the half-furled bud out at him.

“That’s not how it goes.” He takes the flower anyway, careful not to prick his fingers on the thorns. 

“It does here. The color suits you.” The rose is a soft yellow, its petals almost gold in the sunlight. Sulu takes it from his hands with a sure touch and nearly cradles it for a moment before slipping it into the pouch at Jim’s side.

“A curious gift,” Spock says, his words clipped.

“I’m afraid you don’t get one, but you aren’t concerned with remembrance.” Sulu’s words are as gentle as all this damnable fucking snow and laced with the same subtle deadliness.

Spock doesn’t say anything to that for seconds that Jim measures by counting the snowflakes that fall before his face, as many as he can keep track of. “You should not be so certain in your statements.”

Nothing follows; however, and Jim takes it upon himself to break the silence.

“Right. Thank you for the rose.”

Sulu turns away from them both. “Roses. No spindles, but she’s still sleeping.” The winds whips around them and the scent of roses is nearly tangible, as if it were a person standing behind him, just out of his line of sight. The flowers blur, the colors smearing like paint against the white canvas of the world.

It’s beautiful, but it doesn’t make any sense. “I’ve been worried I’d go the whole day without the requisite dose of cryptic statements.” 

“I’m here to help, Sir.” Sulu inclines his head at him, not quite a nod, and he returns to his roses. He’s taking less care this time; however, and his hands are torn by the sharp and curling thorns. He doesn’t even seem to notice that his hands are bleeding but when Jim reaches out to stop him he pulls away. 

“It’s alright; it doesn’t hurt.” On both hands the blood begins to run down towards his wrist.

Sulu keeps reaching into the rosebush, without care or concern for himself and continues to bleed.

“You’d best be going. I wish you the best of luck! Even though you’ll almost certainly die, it’s sure to be an awfully big adventure.” 

Jim’s heard that one before too. 

-

All in all, he doesn’t like the crystal forest much. It’s beautiful, a collection of shattered glass reflections pieced back together, but it’s too much. Jarring, whispers of light catching the edges of his vision. He hunches his shoulders against the feeling of being watched, and stays on edge the entire morning ride, shrugging off attempts at conversation and apologizing for it when they stop for lunch.

“It’s just these trees,” he says, leaning against Spock’s shoulder as they dig through the barely-thawed bits of lunch. They’re both leaning against Spock’s big brown horse, who stands steady to accommodate them.

“The forest is a bit overwhelming,” Spock concedes, and Bones agrees with them both.

“It’s so gaudy you’d think it was trying to impress someone. And the damn sunlight’s reflecting off of one fucking thing or another, no matter which way you look. It’s annoying, and the horses aren’t thrilled with it either.”

They’re all jumping at shadows, or something like it.

“We won’t have far to go, though,” Jim says. He could pull out the map and check, but they haven’t much needed to with all the people they’ve been running into. At this point, he’s wondering when the rest of the senior crew of the _Enterprise_ will show up. 

Bones lets his horse finish off his apple. “Which is a good thing. Your whole plan hangs on us getting there in time for the celebration, which should be possible at this pace.”

“Assuming you haven’t jinxed us all by saying something like that, Bones.”

Spock shifts against his side. “McCoy’s comment can have no actual impact on our journey.”

The noise Jim makes is halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “You just don’t tempt irony like that, Spock.”

“We are hardly characters in a novel, to be described by such terms.”

Jim fights back the sudden fit of laughter that rises at _that_ remark: Spock is usually correct but he’s inadvertently outdone himself with that comment.

He doesn’t mean to do it. He’s followed all the rules so far, which is better than his normal record. But there’s a moment where the sunlight reflects off of the crystal trees and the forest fractures into a swarm of lights and reflections. A multitude of angles, casting beautiful but blinding reflections, and he can’t – 

He can’t see; the sun is in his eyes because the sun is _everywhere_. It should be white but the crystals refracts the light into a thousand thousand colors, drenching the snow around them.

Squinting, he steps forward, quickly as if he could push through the color, force his way back to Spock and McCoy.

“Jim, the path – ” Spock calls out, but he hears it an instant too late. Half-blind and stumbling, he steps right off the path and into the forest.

-

And everything _shifts._

He is in San Francisco, lying on his bed in the academy, scrolling through a PADD as Bones gripes about the incompetents he has to babysit at the hospital.

“You know you wouldn’t put up with that shit unless you liked them on some level.”

Bones throws a pen at him. His occasional reliance on actual pen-and-paper notetaking is charmingly rustic. “They’re fourth-year med students. They know just enough to forget how incompetent they are. Heaven help us all when they get the actual degree and the title.” 

“Not everyone is as brilliant as you, Bones. Try and have some compassion for their suffering.”

“Amazingly hypocritical, considering you’re at the top of your class and trying to blow through command track in three years.”

Jim smiles and lobs Bones’ pen back at him. “I try. Besides, if I hadn’t skipped most of the undergrad courses, I wouldn’t be able to take grad-level linguistics and I wouldn’t have nearly as many chances to antagonize Spock.”

Bones’ sigh is loud in the quiet dorm room. “I can’t decide if brilliance is the price of your stupidity, or if it’s the other way around. I guess that’s what you get for being Starfleet inbred.”

He puts his PADD down at his side and sits up. “That reminds me – Dad’s visiting this weekend.”

(but his father is dead)

-

And everything shifts.

He’s older than he is now, standing on the bridge of the _Enterprise_. They’re in spacedock; she’ll launch tomorrow for the start of her five-year mission.

The turbolift doors behind him slide open with a pneumatic hiss.

“She’s a fine ship, _Captain._ ”

His father has never looked so proud and someone else’s words echo through his mind –

_he proudly lived to see you become Captain_

“I know.”

(but this is not his life)

-

And everything shifts.

He’s cocooned in warmth, shrouded in blankets and the heat of the body that moves against him, _into_ him. 

Jim learned how to map the cartography of Spock’s face long ago; what each small shift in the Vulcan’s features meant. Right now, the corners of Spock’s mouth barely lift but the man might as well be beaming at him.

He’s never lingered through life; he moves quickly and always forward. But time could stop right now, could slow, stretch this moment out until it lasted. Could slow down until each slide of skin on skin took forever. 

They’ve done this so many times, but Jim still feels the weight of _wanting_ etched onto his bones, and he hooks his legs around Spock as best as he can, pulling the Vulcan against him. It’s much harder for them to move like this, but he can’t make himself let go. 

Spock shifts forward and up, running one hand along the length of Jim’s arm, fingers trailing up to coil around his wrist, tangle with his own. He pauses then and looks down at Jim.

“Jim, your hand - ”

-

There’s blood on his hand. 

A rose for remembrance. And he’s right, it’s _not_ how it goes and as the thorns dig into his palm he feels grounded by the reality under his feet. His is not the best of all possible worlds, but it's his, and he’s greedy enough to keep it. 

He pushes away the possibilities, the maybes and the might-have-beens, and walks. 

There’s no path, and the trees around him all look the same, reflecting edges of things that never were. He still sees the splinters of those lives out of the corner of his eye, but he holds tightly onto the rose Sulu gave him and his memories are his own.

“You’re not doing that badly, all things considered.”

Jim almost expected her. They’ve met everyone else, so Jim supposes it was Uhura’s turn. His head is swimming, and he’s still not sure which direction is down, assuming there still is a proper direction for down. Gravity hasn’t decided to fuck off yet in this little adventure, so he’s hopeful.

“None of that happened.”

It’s only when Uhura stepped closer to him that he realized the crystal forest had retreated, surrounding them but giving them space to breathe. A clearing and a house and Uhura, staring at him as if he’s just dribbled all over his shirt.

“It might have happened, in a different time and a different place. It’s a possibility.”

“It isn’t _mine_.”

She laughs at that, or maybe at him. “You speak with surprising authority considering you have no idea what’s going on.”

“And you do?”

Uhura reaches, catches the edge of his coat with her hand. “Of course I do – I’m the witch. I live on the edges of things. It’s the part I’ve been given to play.” She pulls him gently forward, moving with ease through the snow despite the heavy drape of her dress.

It suits her, but Uhura’s always had the unique ability to make anything suit her. 

“There are worse roles to play. I pity yours.”

He assumes this house is hers; the walls covered with words he doesn’t know. This too suits her. “And what would my role be?”

“You’re the hero. What else would you be?” She tells him this as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it is.

There’s a table in the center of the room. Jim shakes his head and sinks into one of the chairs by it. A few books lie open, but the words in them don’t make any sense. 

“And how in the hell did that happen – that I’m the hero and you’re the witch and, what, Sulu’s the mystical gardener?”

He’s half-expecting Uhura to scoff and put him in his place, so it’s a surprise when she sits beside him, her hands resting on the table. “Magic is just another language. We all have our parts to play in how that story is told.”

“And who the hell is telling it?”

She shrugs, and the red fabric of her dress shifts to different shades of the color as she moves. “I’m a part of this. What makes you think I would know?”

He sighs. “I am amazingly tired of this cryptic bullshit. There’s some sort of rule where no one in this place can give me a straight answer, isn’t there?”

“Poor baby.” The words are biting sharp. “Everyone’s already helped you along your way – you were given a gun and a rose, given companions on your way and a story that makes them agree with your nonsense – and you’re complaining that we speak in riddles. We are what we are. It’s about rules.”

Rules. He’s always hated that word, but no one asked for his opinion. 

“And how are you going to help? Assuming that you are.”

She is very patient with him, and he wishes she weren’t. “Other than keeping you alive? Information.” 

“Information,” he repeats, and chooses his next words with care. “You talk in a lot of circles for someone giving out information.”

Uhura shakes her head slowly. She’s more generous with him than she tends to be, even if it’s tinged with condescension. “You’re not very good at listening.”

Maybe, but he is acquiring one hell of a headache from this mess. He folds his arms against the tabletop and lets his head rest against them. It’s easier like this. Quiet and still, in a world where even the sky feels like its moving.

He looks up at the delicate pressure of slender fingers resting against his head, carding through his hair. “It’s alright. You’re learning, doing the best that you can. Do you know what you need to do?”

His hand drifts to the gun holstered at his side, and he pulls it out, holds it in both hands. It feels cold even through his heavy gloves, and Uhura sighs softly at the sight of it. 

“Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor – you’re not there yet, you know.”

Jim stares at the gun in his hands, ticking with cold, mechanical precision. “Yeah. I’m starting to get that.”

Uhura takes the gun from him, her hands cradling the metal. She opens the cylinder and spins it idly. Jim watches as the light shines through the empty chambers or is blocked by the bullets.

“You’ll have to be careful,” she says, closing the cylinder and handing the revolver back to him. “Head, heart, hope. You have to take care of all three.”

The words have the gravity of something very important, the sort of shiver he doesn’t feel in the air that tends to mean this matters.

“Head, heart, and hope?” He repeats, feeling through the words. It sounds like a rhyme, or a counting game. He only ever learned the one about crows.

“The third one’s tricky. But you need all three of them.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to make any more sense than that?” 

She smiles at him, and the expression is uncommonly kind as she reaches for his hand and draws him out of her small house. “You’ll have to sort it yourself. You wouldn’t be much of a hero if you didn’t.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“See that you do,” she says, and her voice goes sing-song soft. “One more question, _Sir_ , and consider it carefully - won’t you join the dance?”

She pushes him into the forest. There’s a blur, and he’s waking up to the sight of concern on Spock’s face and the sound of Bones calling him ten kinds of a fool.

-

“Head, heart, hope? You go through the madness of the crystal forest, and that’s the best you get from it?”

“Bones - ” Jim begins, but Bones waves him off and goes back to tending the fire. Jim shudders slightly at the reflections of flames dancing in the crystal surrounding them, and Spock rests his hand on his shoulder, the faint pressure of his fingertips grounding him. 

He’s silent, but he’s there. Jim can appreciate that as he tries to fall asleep, waiting for dawn.

-

Evigheden rises before them, its spires dark shapes scratched out against the sky. Despite the spindly architecture, there’s nothing about it that feels delicate. It is not a palace, it is a castle, a fortress of ice and snow, walls of wind and cold.

“Well, there it is Jim. Would you now like to tell us exactly how you propose we enter Evigheden? The walls are too high to climb, even if we had that sort of skill. And I doubt the Snow Queen would approve of receiving visitors like that.”

Shaking his head, Jim turns his horse toward the main path. “We go through the front door, Bones. She has to let us in.”

“You are completely crazy, you do know that? I think that trip off the path broke something.” 

“McCoy is not entirely incorrect in his estimation, although I do not believe your journey exacerbated natural tendencies,” Spock adds. Jim merely shakes his head. 

“The fact that you two agree with each other is troubling enough, also points for the subtle insult, Spock. Come on, we’re going in.” He nudges his horse forward, down the winding path that leads to the castle, until he falls under the shadow of its spires. There’s a narrow passageway that leads to the front entrance, but it covers over a moat of ice, not water. Despite that, there are shapes within the frozen depths when he chances a glance downward, shadows that shift beneath the ice. Their horses clearly don’t care for this nonsense, tossing their heads a bit and moving forward with evident regret. The uneven sounds of hooves against stone are the only noises he can hear, and the doors before them part open silently as they approach.

The courtyard inside is empty, dominated by a fountain in the center: a young girl supporting a cascade of ice, surrounded by swans. Jim counts off almost a dozen of the birds before one of the shapes unfurls and shifts, walking over to them. It looks more like a person now, although somehow still like a swan.

“I welcome you to Evigheden. My mistress regrets she cannot be here to receive visitors herself. She extends her welcome and the hospitality of her house.”

Jim dismounts and sketches a hasty bow, hoping it’s appropriate for the situation. Are you supposed to bow to animated boy-swan statues? The question never really came up in any discussions of diplomacy.

“Your mistress has our sincere thanks for her offer of hospitality.” 

The servant bows at them, speaking again. “The Snow Queen always enjoys the unique perspectives visitors to Evigheden bring. It is unlikely she will be able to greet you before the celebration tomorrow, but you may approach her then, if you can delay your travels enough to attend.”

She probably enjoys visitors so much they never get to leave, Jim thinks, and drops into another, shallower bow. “We would be honored to attend.”

The sound the servant makes is far from human, a high-pitched cooing noise that cuts off abruptly. It sounds like a swan, though he wouldn’t exactly know. 

At the noise, several of the swans spring to life, becoming more human in appearance and walking over to the group. The horses shift at their approach, and Spock’s brown tosses his head when one of them reaches for his reins. 

Spock calms the horse down until he allows one of the servants to grasp the reins, although he’s breathing heavily and shifts his weight uneasily, restless. 

“My apologies. He is ill at ease around strangers.” 

The bird-servant looks at him, and although Jim can’t read much from his quite literal stone face, the thing almost looks quizzical. 

The two remaining horses aren’t thrilled with their treatment either, but let the stone servants lead them away. The first servant, and now the only remaining one, gestures them forward with a sweep of his wing-arm.

“This way, please. I will show you to our guest quarters.”

He looks at the fountain statue as they leave, but it feels too empty, the girl in it somehow lonely, and he turns away.

-

The walls of the room are made of stone, the mortar chips of ice and the strange magic of this place. He tries not to touch them; though the air of the room feels almost comfortable the walls are so cold.

It isn’t quick; Spock doesn’t have to surprise him, doesn’t need to slip beneath his guard when he lives and breathes inside it. There’s a step, and Spock is there, pressed against him, a force of heat against the numbing cold.

It isn’t gentle, which makes it almost real. 

He should pull away, he knows. Should detangle himself from Spock and walk away. He pulls his hands away from Spock’s, twisting slowly away from the Vulcan, stepping away.

Spock looks at him, his eyes dark and his expression shuttered. Not closed off as much as caged in and Jim’s always been good at straining Spock’s control.

There’s no warning, not that it would have done Jim much good. Just the almost audible snap of tension breaking before Spock strikes, lunging forward and bearing Jim down onto the fortified architecture of the bed. 

“Spock, wait - ” Jim starts, but Spock’s not listening to him, and any further protests Jim might have had catch in his throat as Spock trails his lips down the line of Jim’s neck, a dedicated application of tongue and the sharp edge of teeth. 

He surges against him, moving up to pin Jim’s hands with his own, trapping his legs under his weight, tangling them together. His hips circle against Jim’s, moving without rhythm or pattern. It’s terribly unfair that even in this strange place Spock is as strong as ever. Despite his acceptance of the story, the invented land, and the pretend history, Spock seems somehow more complete, whole and entire. However, Jim, who remembers, who _knows_ , feels more and more fragmented, surrounded by the pieces of himself.

But as he’s said before, their lives have never been much for fair.

He’s less and less of what he was, but fuck it all, he wanted this. Not here, not in this place where even the walls aren’t real. This, though, this could be real, still, and he wanted this. When Spock raises his head to meet Jim’s eyes, he almost knows him. 

He lifts his head and meets Spock halfway, fitting his mouth against his. Spock makes a surprised little sound, and his hands tighten about Jim’s wrists. He’ll have bruises, and the thought of that, the almost-permanence of it, has Jim hard and aching. 

Spock gasps when Jim pushes up against him and Jim finds the opening that presents and takes it, licks past the edges of Spock’s mouth into the heat of him. It isn’t coaxing or gentle but Spock certainly doesn’t mind, returning the kiss with equal fervor, pressing Jim into the bed beneath them both.

He’s hard against Jim and each subtle shift of his hips makes Jim gasp from breath, for _more_. 

Spock wants this. He does, he has to, Jim tells himself as Spock lets go of one of his wrists, hovering over Jim and trailing his now-free hand down Jim’s chest.

Spock wants this, he thinks, but Jim’s already reaching down, stopping Spock’s hand. 

Spock may want this, but he doesn’t want Jim. 

He doesn’t know what he wants, and this is about as far from ‘informed consent’ as Jim can get without drugging the man himself. 

“I can’t,” he says. He can’t help but meet Spock’s eyes as he speaks, the Vulcan’s face still only a handspan above his own.

It’s easier now that he’s starting talking. “And I can’t tell you why I can’t, even though I’d really fucking like to. I just hope you don’t hate me when this is all sorted and that I haven’t managed to fuck this all up already.”

His voice doesn’t quite sound like his to his ears, and the words are a jumbled rush. There’s a curious ache in his chest, slow, dull and terribly painful, as Spock pulls away, moving off of him.

Jim’s probably managed to fuck everything up anyway. He is talented in all the wrong ways.

Spock settles next to him on the bed, tugging one of Jim’s hands to rest against his own, their fingers tangling together.

“You are a complex and thoroughly confusing individual,” Spock informs him, “but I do not believe that I could ever be capable of hating you.”

It’s more than he thought he’d get. Jim lets himself sleep. 

-

Getting dressed is something of an ordeal: Jim’s not sure where the clothes came from or why they fit perfectly. He’s trying to settle into them, to feel at home draped in this rich, unfamiliar fabric, black and gray, gold and red, edging and mixing into each other. He thinks the colors are moving when he’s not looking, and it feels a bit like someone took a storm and made fabric from it. 

Dealing with it is harder than he would have thought, particularly when Bones walks past the pair of them. His rough edges are smoothed over by the clean lines of the long coat, the shifting hues of blue. He’s _elegant_ , which is not a word he tends to associate with the doctor.

Unsurprisingly, Spock looks like a prince, brilliantly cast in dark, subtle shades. It’s that sort of story, Jim supposes, and he is out-of-place and nearly fidgeting. 

“Okay.” Jim eyes the dancers, all moving together in step, like the clockwork cogs in the gun hidden beneath his finely-embroidered coat. The room before them is an immense construction of glittering crystal and ice, an empty throne waiting at the far end, and the walls are lined with statues he half expects to come alive. “I have a very poor idea of what they’re doing or how to do it, but we might as well begin.”

“Considering our relative levels of proficiency, I will lead.”

“I’ll argue with you about this later.” He lets Spock take his hand and lead them both forward. It’s easier with Spock leading – now, all he has to do is put his trust in Spock, and he’s practiced at that.

Spock leads him out into the swirl of color and cloth, and they begin. He thought he’d be able to manage this and he can take his cues from Spock at first. However, when the music picks up speed, a thrum of violins backed by the darker notes of a cello, an insistent piano and a crashing hint of drums, he almost stumbles. Spock steadies him before it becomes disastrous and Jim breathes and lets Spock guide him. He takes his cues from Spock’s body and his voice, the lean line pressed up against him and the words spoken in his ear.

“Step right, back, back, left – do not look down. Follow my voice and my body, not my feet. Forward, out twice and back together.” The words are rushed as Spock maneuvers them into position among the other dancers. Jim steps an arm’s length away, gaze settling on the empty throne, a confection of twisted ice. Spock pulls him back in and he manages not to hit any of the dancers as he does.

“I’m really glad you know what you’re doing.” The music is loud but they’re of a height that it’s easy to whisper directly into Spock’s ear.

The arm around his waist tightens and Jim has the utterly inane thought that he’s spent a lot of time in the crazy world with Spock’s arm about his waist. He’s going to have to do something sufficiently manly to make up for all of it when he gets out of this.

“One of us has to. Step back twice and then turn.” Jim nods and does, stepping away and letting Spock pull him back.

“When the music changes the dancers will split. Step to the other column and come back together afterward.”

There’s a thrum of violins, the music cresting in a wave of sound that sweeps over the dancers and then settles. They’re left in its wake, quiet and stunned. Spock nudges Jim before he realizes that he’s nearly missed the cue to split apart. They pull away from each other as the dancers form two long lines.

There’s surprisingly little fanfare when the double doors open. Jim has seen dignitaries and diplomats, spoken with kings and queens, and he’s used to the flare of music, the announcement and grand proclamations. But the Snow Queen is received only by their silence, as the entire room scarcely dares to breathe.

She’s beautiful. He expected that. Her hair is a long fall of light blonde that sweeps past her shoulders, and the smooth arch of her neck puts any of the perfect statues to shame. 

She’s absolutely _terrifying_ , beautiful in the way winter is beautiful: perfect, cold and cruel.

The Snow Queen doesn’t say anything, merely walks through the space they’ve opened for her, gliding across the floor. She settles on her throne and raises one hand, her pale wrist impossibly thin and sickly white despite being set against the ice-blue of her dress. Her hand flows through the air with an unnatural grace, and the music starts up again as if she was conducting. Maybe she is – conducting all of this and all of them. 

Jim steps forward, meeting Spock halfway and letting him lead them. This time the music is far wilder, climbing to a crescendo and then crashing back down. The dance reflects it, and it’s all he can do to keep up. 

In the shifting sunset of color around them, he catches glimpses of his crew, of their empty eyes as they dance: Sulu dances with a fencer’s grace and Uhura seems to glide as she moves. He can see hints of the others. They’re all wearing such strange clothes, forced to follow the steps of this dance. All of them, back here and together with him; he can't fathom the mechanics of it, and pulls his focus back to Spock.

“Jim. As the dance continues, we will pass directly before the Snow Queen.” Once Spock tells him, he can see what he means: the dancers have formed a loose circle, and they are spiraling about the edge of it. They’re across the room from her now, but they’ll come directly before her soon enough. If there ever was a perfect moment for his attack, it would be then.

With every step he feels the revolver at his side shift in its holster. 

“We are almost there.” The words are only whispers, but they’re so close that Jim hears them clear as day, clear as _space_ , the beautiful open blackness that stretch between stars. 

“Now.” They break away, stepping out of formation, away from the crush of dancers. The pattern of dancing begins to fray apart without them in it, and Spock is a reassurance at his side as he pulls out the gun.

His hand doesn’t waver in the slightest. No matter what role this world has cast him in, he is, above all else, himself.

She doesn’t say anything. Only stands, watching him with eyes as flat as chips of glass. Her hands are still at her sides.

Jim fires.

By sheer luck or divine providence the first two bullets hit home – head and heart. He doesn’t know what or where her hope is, but he needs fire three times. It’s a rule, and this place is all about rules. He’s about the pull the trigger once more when the Snow Queen collapses to the floor, blood-that-isn’t pooling beneath her, a growing spread of blue-white.

Like icewater. Head and heart. 

Beside him Spock is very still. No, the entire hall is still, everything frozen with the sound of the two shots. The music has stopped.

“Jim – Captain?” Spock says, and for the first time Spock _knows_ him. Relief floods through him like the spring this place never sees, as recognition dawns in the eyes of his crew. 

“Everyone back with me?” he calls out, his grip still tight around the gun. 

Head, heart, hope. He only got two out of the three.

There’s a chorus of confusion and curses around him as they all register where they are.

“It’s great everyone’s back, but we’re still stuck in bizarro land,” he says, or starts to. Jim gets as far as the second word when she strikes.

It feels like being picked up and thrown, as if he’s caught in a great wind, tearing at his clothes, ripping at his face. He hits the wall in a rush and with a crack that he thinks might have been one rib or several. The gun clatters to the floor and he follows it, landing in a heap.

There are several shouts of “Jim!” and “Captain!” and over it all another voice, shrill and angry. It sounds like breaking glass.

“You ruined it! It was perfect – everyone was happy – and you _ruined_ everything!” 

His head is spinning, he can’t think, he can’t breathe, and he’s only dimly aware of Bones, frantic over him, of Spock’s careful hands supporting him. The crew’s spread themselves around him, and the walls shudder and twist. Shards of glass and ice litter the floor. The windows shatter inward and the wind and the snow whip through the room.

The Snow Queen rises from the floor, a jerky pile of limbs reanimating, the wounds in her chest and head still visible, somehow still bleeding.

“This is your fault! It’s all your fault,” she hisses, stalking forward. All the grace’s gone out of her.

Jim coughs until he can find the breath to speak, struggling to stand despite Bones’ worry and Spock’s hands asking him to stay still. 

“But none of it was real.”

 _“Shut up!”_ She hurls the words like knives, intent to wound or kill. The walls themselves shake with the force of it, and the beautiful sculptures around them shatter into pieces. 

She’s angry and scared and she sounds so very young, like a little girl screaming injustice at the world. And Jim gets it.

“Molly?”

Her eyes are confused, but the air itself quivers with the sound of her name.

“You’re Molly, aren’t you?”

When he calls her name the second time she crumples, burying her face in her hands. Her body is too big for her, and she moves with the disjointed almost-grace of a child playing dress-up. The sounds she makes belong to someone much younger than she is.

Something pushes on his chest, and it feels like the weight of this broken world pressing against him. He can’t quite breathe, and thinks that should bother him more than it does. He can’t see anything, can’t hear anything but the Snow Queen – Molly’s – choked sobs.

There’s a flash of white, and everything blurs away to the broken wail of a child crying and, distantly, the echoes of one final gunshot.

-


	5. the rose in the valley

\----

III

the rose in the valley

_no greater power than what she has already_

\----

Jim comes back to himself on the bridge of the _Enterprise_ and immediately has to fight back the urge to vomit as vertigo swamps his senses. It feels like the ship’s stabilizers have completely failed, like they’re hurtling through space or very quickly out of orbit and toward the ground. 

“Everyone, report in,” he calls out as he staggers to his feet, rushing over to his chair, pulling up the ship’s statistics to confirm their orbit’s held despite the disorientation that still swamps him, the pain that stabs through his chest. It has, thank everything, and he opens the shipwide broadcasting frequency.

“Crew of the _Enterprise_ , this is the Captain. We have all been caught in a psychic field. We’re pulling free of it now, but you all may be confused or disoriented, possibly with strange memories. I need everyone to return to your posts and perform your duties to the best of your abilities. A full ship-wide briefing will follow as soon as possible.”

He turns to Uhura, who’s still shaking the haze away but meets his gaze and holds it.

“Uhura, I need you to transmit the same general message to the _Reliance_.”

“Transmitting, Captain.” Jim doesn’t stop, doesn’t wait. He can’t afford to.

“Spock, confirm the status of engineering. Sulu, keep our course steady and Chekov, what’s going on with the _Reliance?_. Status report.” The crew scrambles to comply; everyone’s going to deserve some fantastic shore leave when this is through, and he opens a channel on his communicator.

“Bridge to Sickbay. Bones, are you receiving me?”

Through the crackle of yells and the tinge of almost-static through a connection that is normally crystal-clear before Bones’ voice comes through.

“Jim? We’re here and back – but we need to work on one of the _Reliance_ crew. Sustained some damage from the incident – minor enough but - ”

It’s not as though Bones can see him, but Jim nods anyway as he interrupts him. “Understood. Give me status updates when you have them.” 

He cuts the transmission only to be greeted by Uhura calling him.

“Captain, the _Reliance_ is hailing us.”

“On screen,” The view screen fills with the image of a man’s strained face; behind him Jim can see the frantic motion of his crew, probably similar to the activity on his bridge right now. 

“This is Captain Dasari. Captain Kirk, I am to understand your crew experienced the same collective hallucination?”

Spock forwards him the report from engineering and Jim scans it as he responds. “Yes, Captain Dasari. We were all kept within the same psychically-induced world. What is the status of your ship? We can offer whatever assistance we’re capable of providing.” 

Dasari shakes his head. “Mechanical assistance won’t be necessary, Captain Kirk. The _Reliance_ itself is in serviceable condition. Our warp and impulse engines are still intact. And the _Enterprise_?”

Engineering shows them perfectly in the clear. “We weren’t trapped in that world nearly as long as you all were. As your communication logs recorded, we were sent to report on your status and the status of the _Kenntnis_.”

Behind Dasari, Kirk recognizes a tall, slim woman by the sight of her bright red hair. She’s rushing about their bridge, barking out orders. “We were about to beam down to the planet when the attack hit. We have preliminary scans of the _Kenntnis_ , including its location, which I will transmit over.” Dasari lets out a long breath. “I’d appreciate my crew members back, if they’re well enough for it.”

“We’ll beam them over if they’re stable.”

“Thank you, Captain Kirk. It’s one of the strangest things I’ve encountered, but my crew seems none the worse for wear. I hope yours is well.”

Dasari cuts the transmission, no doubt dealing with stabilizing his own crew and his own ship. All around him, the bridge is returning to some semblance of order as his people do their jobs.

Everyone settling into their role, he thinks and fights back a shudder, opens up a channel to sickbay instead.

“Bones? You back with us?”

There’s a garble of shouting before Bones responds. “We’re all back and coherent, Jim. Back and dealing with the _Reliance_ crew.” Bones must have turned away from the communicator at that point, because the ‘you stay in the bed until _I_ say otherwise’ isn’t directed at him.

“Status of those crew members?”

“Some concerns with the navigator, otherwise they’re in fine health. And it’s not snowing, which is damned _fantastic._ Jim, are you alright?”

He’s not the only crew member who smiles at hearing Bones’ report on the weather. “Ribs aren’t perfect, but I’ll live.”

“Jim - ” Bones starts, but Jim cuts him off before he can finish.

“I promise you can hypospray me all you want soon enough. I’ll keep. Let me know as soon as the _Reliance_ crew is stable enough to be beamed back.”

“You’re a bit of a moron sometimes, Jim. You’ll know when I know,” Bones replies, and Jim cuts the transmission. He opens up the shipwide broadcasting frequency and begins to speak.

-

He says more than he means to, but his crew deserves it. What just happened to them isn’t exactly in anyone’s job description. They’re used to a lot of strange nonsense out here, but ‘telepathically induced world of winter’ isn’t what anyone signed up for.

It’s easy to congratulate them on a handling the situation admirably, harder to recommend that anyone experiencing difficulties report to sickbay.

He remembers a world full of snow and impossible trees and people who speak in sing-song riddles. It was beautiful and terrible in equal measures, but it happened. Asking people to report to sickbay won’t change what they saw.

“Captain Kirk, we have been sent the information about the _Kenntnis_ by Captain Dasari.” Chekov scans through information at his station, pulling up a map and blinking coordinates. “They report that the _Kenntnis_ appeared to have fallen from its orbit, possibly a systems malfunction. They were about to investigate the presumed crash site when they were caught in the psychic attack we experienced.”

Chekov glances up at the spread of displays before him. “It is difficult to determine the exact condition of the ship, but I have the best approximate coordinates based upon the data and monitoring the energy shifts from the planet our ship’s computer recorded while we were all in the illusion.”

“Is it precise enough to beam a party down?”

The words are hesitant but perfectly clear. “Yes, Captain.”

“Good,” Jim says and stands. “Spock, you have the conn.”

Spock’s face borders on emotive, tinges of ‘the hell I do’ warring with what Jim would call a ‘bitch, please’ expression on anyone else. “I believe that venturing to the planet’s surface now would be unnecessarily dangerous.”

“We need to know what happened, Spock, and I believe I gave you an order.”

“You have been subject to an emotionally trying event, Captain, particularly considering your awareness of self during it and your residual physical trauma.” That’s all the protest Spock needs to give, the underpinnings of ‘emotionally compromised’ clear for everyone to see.

“Sulu, take the conn,” Jim grounds out. “Commander Spock, with me.”

He leads the way to the turbolift and waits until the doors close to round on the Vulcan. “That was dangerously close to insubordination, Spock.”

“There are too many variables at present for you to safely beam to the surface of Delta-IV, Captain,” Spock replies, entirely unapologetic. He’s as impassive as Jim’s ever seen him, his face calm and collected, a far cry from the Spock of before. A fake Spock with real emotions, Jim thinks, though it does his Spock, the real Spock, a disservice.

It would be easier to argue with Spock if he weren’t right- that much remains consistent - and Jim sags against the turbolift wall. “I escaped the full effects of the psychic field the first time.”

“A phenomenon that we have no explanation for. Captain, I do not believe that we will experience another psychic event; however, the world is still unexplored and subject to any number of potentially fatal hazards.”

“If you want to waste time by babysitting me, Spock, you should just say so.”

“On the contrary, Captain,” Spock replies as the doors hiss open, “I am simply equipped to function as both a science and security officer. It is only logical for me to accompany you if you insist on beaming down.”

Bullshit, he thinks, but the need to find the _Kenntnis_ gnaws at him, and he lets it slide. 

-

Some part of him, however subconsciously, has braced for _snow_ , for the hammer of cold slamming into his ribs when he tries to breathe. It doesn’t make much sense, he’s seen the atmospheric readings for the planet’s surface and they’re well within comfort levels. 

However, the last few days have been a whirlwind of nonsense and maybe he’s gotten used to that. When they do beam down, it’s to a quiet clearing surrounded by the strict spines of tall trees. The air is cool but pleasant. Mild, and it feels like it might rain. It reminds him of when he was twenty-four and dragged Bones on an impromptu trip to Washington State. The trees have that sense of scale.

Spock’s already taking readings with his tricorder, while the four security ensigns are on guard, edgy. Their hands hover too close to their phasers. He lets them have their fear, though it won’t do them any good. If they are attacked again, it’s not the sort of thing they can fight. 

He did, though. He fought.

“Captain. By the initial telemetry and our new readings, we should find the _Kenntnis_ approximately two kilometers due east.” Spock indicates the right direction with a subtle inclination of his head and Jim leads them off.

It’s a bit cooler once they’re under the shadow of the trees. They’re not what he expects: too tall, reaching high above their heads and spreading out a multi-hued leaf cover dense enough to block out most of the sky above. The carpet of leaves underneath, all a dull dead brown, rustle as they walk. Everything is dry and far too still.

The _Kenntnis_ lies halfway wedged into a ravine carved into the landscape by one of the fast-flowing streams that crisscross through the forest. Its outer hull is damaged near the bow, metal crumbled inward on itself. Like a child’s toy, loved and cherished once and then discarded when it broke under the force of that same adoration. 

He’s been running into that theme a lot recently, Jim thinks.

They approach it carefully, avoiding packets of brush and bramble, winding their way around trees and stepping over their roots as they descend into the ravine. As Jim gets near the downed vessel there’s an explosion of noise from the patch of brush to his left. He jumps back, glancing down to reach for his phaser, bringing it up and aiming it at the sound only to find the obstruction of Spock in his sights, his first officer standing in front of him with his own phaser out and drawn. 

Jim never saw him move; Spock was simply there, ready. A creature that resembles an odd cross between an earth deer and a really big rat explodes outward from the bushes, slender legs taking it swiftly away from the group, its green-brown patchwork fur fading into the forest.

The tension in Spock’s shoulders eases, and he steps away. “An indigenous herbivore, Captain. I can recall it from the _Kenntnis’_ files.”

“Let’s keep moving.” He motions the rest of the security team forward, and they step toward the wreck of the vessel. They circle it twice; all the entrances are sealed shut by the ship's lack of power. There are a few breaches in the hull of the ship they could enter from, and Jim's about to suggest that when to members of the security detail comm that they've managed to get one actual entrance open.

“Teams of two, cover the vessel. We’re looking for any sign of survivors or what happened here. Official records, computer logs, remnants of personal journals or written observations.” 

The group fragments, Spock heading towards him.

“Captain, I believe I can access the computer system.” His tricorder is already out and flashing through readings of the ship. “While the energy reserves of the ship are critically depleted, it should be possible to divert enough resources to power the main terminals.”

Their footsteps echo through the narrow halls of the _Kenntnis_ , resounding off of the metal around them. It’s an empty ship, as dead as the _Reliance_ had looked when they’d first come across it. 

“No signs of any of the crew so far,” Jim says, more to himself than anything.

“There have been no indications of a struggle,” Spock replies as the two of them move through one of the empty common areas of the ship. Jim can see the shrouded outlines of scientific equipment through one of the half-open doors; the _Kenntnis_ had an impressive science lab. 

There’s enough of a gap left open that they can manage to squeeze through the doorway, Jim’s hips swiveling as he wedges himself past, moving until they come onto the ghost of a bridge, empty terminals standing like memorials or headstones. 

When the terminal screen flickers dimly to life, Spock begins immediately, wasting no time. No telling how long the power supply will hold, after all, and he locates the ship’s log immediately, bringing up data, recordings, a string of numbers and graphs. 

“The record is fragmentary, Captain, but intelligible. It will take further time to analyze properly, but it appears that the _Kenntnis_ was tracking a massive surge in psionic energy originating from something on the planet when the ship’s system experienced a catastrophic failure and it fell to the planet. Beyond that, there is only speculation.”

“No bodies,” he points out.

Spock is unflinching in his logic. “It has been several months, and this is a world with many predators.”

They didn’t even get a burial, not any of them. Though – he reasons, comforts - some of them must have survived the crash, even if they didn’t survive for very long. Perhaps they were able to honor their dead. It’s possible. Not probable, but it is possible. 

He has to think like that now, he knows - if only right now, he has to be the captain, and not anything else.

“Transmit the data to the _Enterprise_ , Spock. We’ll begin a search for any survivors.”

Jim knows they won’t find any, but he moves out of the room to start his search anyway. What he does find, almost immediately, is the crew quarters. They’re a small section of the ship, and he doesn’t have to spend much time searching before he finds it.

The room belonged to a small child, the remnants of that life are tucked into corners and edges: the stuffed animal on the bed, tattered with stuffing fraying from one over-large ear, the still-vibrant colors, the row of actual books stacked neatly in a shelf. Jim trails one careful hand over the spines of them, sorting through the strange-familiar titles. Some of the stories he knows and some he doesn’t but he’s heard this all before.

The edges of the pages are tattered and yellowed, and he turns them with care as he reads, speaking the words softly.

_He thinks everything there is to his taste and liking, and he believes that it’s the best place in the world, but that’s because he has a splinter of glass in his heart and a tiny speck of glass in his eye. They have to be taken out, otherwise he will never be a human being, and the Snow Queen will keep her hold over him._

The book is clearly well-loved and much read. He carries it carefully, cradling it in his hands for a long moment before tucking it away into his pack.

The far wall of the girl's room is a crumpled mess of metal, half of it torn away. He can see the forest outside, the outlines of the trees and the strange calls of the birds native to this world. Because of the curious way the _Kenntnis_ crashed, there's only a short drop from the tear in the wall to the ground below.

His ribs twinge in warning, but Jim ignores them, levering himself up and through the ripped metal. It's an easy climb, a desk near the edge of the torn metal providing easy access to it.

If anything, it's too easy of a climb. Too familiar, and Jim feels like he's tracing a route he's walked before, despite how impossible that is. He's never been here before, and none of this belongs to him.

His steps lead him away from the ship, moving into the forest surrounding the clearing the _Kenntnis_ crashed into. It doesn't take him very long, all things considered, and maybe that's something he should worry about, how quickly he found this place, as if led.

It's a human skeleton, and it's too small to be anything other than a child's. The massive roots of one of the trees twines about the bones, holding them safe and secure. Embracing it, impossibly strong and invincible; perhaps in the way one's parents seem to the very young.

He doesn't say her name, doesn't breathe the syllables, and barely even thinks it, but still the air around seems to shiver.

He stares at the skeleton for some time, silent and watching, until he becomes aware of Spock standing some steps behind him, for all that the Vulcan is still and made no sound when he approached. 

“I was able to recover some of the personal logs of the ship’s captain,” Spock begins. “She wrote that her daughter came with them on several journeys to the planet’s surface, the last occurring barely a week before the crash. The captain was worried; her daughter’s behavior was increasingly irregular.”

Spock looks at the strange remnants of a girl-who-isn’t, not anymore.

“She would claim that the woods would speak to her; that the trees themselves could talk. And she told them her favorite stories in turn.”

“The story was hers. They told it with her, and she was a part of it, but it was hers,” Jim murmurs, and he doesn’t look at anything.

-

If they were still there, if they were still characters acting out their parts of a prearranged script, Jim would bank on an eventual happy ending. He’d think that this, this meeting shading toward an awkward confrontation where he corners Spock in the transporter room after it empties, was just a part of some greater destiny. 

“You should at least let me apologize, if it upset you that much,” Jim says, to Spock’s non-reaction.

A fight, a squabble, a low and tragic note to give their eventual triumph resonance. Even in stories you ought to have to work for something, after all.

“I do not believe such an action would be appropriate, Captain.”

Problem is, they only story they’re a part of is their own, and Spock won’t even look at him, just heads toward the door.

“Spock. You can call me Jim, you know.”

Spock doesn’t even turn around. “That would also be inappropriate, Captain. Excuse me. I will take the conn so that you may report to sickbay.”

Jim watches as he walks away, tracks him as he leaves without ever looking back, before the doors close behind him, blocking him from view.

Well, _fuck_.

-

“Congratulations,” Bones says as he runs his tricorder over the bruised expanse of Jim’s chest, scowling at the readings he’s getting.

“What’d I win?” 

“Two cracked ribs and some impressive bruising. Likely from when she threw you against the wall.”

Jim grimaces. “Yeah, that wasn't fun.”

“I don't doubt. Still, it'll be one of the weirder ways you'll managed to get yourself mangled on a mission: injury via collective fairytale hallucination.”

Jim laughs and almost immediately regrets it as his healing ribs protest. “Yeah. I suppose it was all a bit fucked up.”

He's not sure exactly what he's referring to, but Bones doesn't say anything, and Jim's not sure he could ever thank him enough for that.

-

If nothing else, the psychic nonsense buys them a pass from the diplomatic events of Callos III. It’s not worth what they went through, but Jim’s glad he won’t have to stand around in full dress uniform for close to a week attempting to be tactful.

Instead, they have a new course with over two weeks of warp travel plotted in. Jim decides to spend most of it overhauling as much of engineering as they can when they’re at warp, working through the math and mechanics that’ll let them push the ship just a bit harder.

It’s easier, being busy. He doesn’t have as much time to think about the awkward tension that sometimes hangs in the air on the bridge or the straight line of Spock’s spine and the even set of his shoulders when he walked away. 

Easier. Right.

But he’s the Captain and he’s James Tiberius Kirk, and he’s not willing to be anything less than comfortable on his own bridge.

“Why roses, Sulu?” 

It takes Sulu a few moments to realize Jim’s even talking to him and a few more to respond to the question.

“I’m sorry, Captain?”

Jim sets down his PADD and the latest feats of engineering gymnastics it details. Scotty is his kind of crazy. “In regards to our stay in bizarro land of perpetual snow. Why roses, do you think?” 

“I like plants, Sir.” 

“I know you like plants, Sulu. I’m just wondering why roses, instead of a garden of Klingon Fireblossoms or the moonblossoms you’re growing in the botany lab now.”

Sulu turns around, pulling his gaze away from star-streaked black flashing past them to look at Jim directly. “Fireblossoms would have been a bit out of place with all that snow. And I’m having trouble with Mandreggan moonblossoms in our botany lab as it is.”

“Mandreggan moonblossoms are notoriously difficult plants, Lieutenant,” interrupts Spock. “Judging from their growth and good health, you are managing admirably.” 

If Sulu had the complexion for it, Jim thinks he’d be blushing with the praise. Spock dispenses compliments rarely enough that each one is memorable. Jim remembers all of the ones he’s received, even the ones Spock probably doesn’t mean to sound like complements, like ‘It is admirable you managed to execute that plan without sustaining serious bodily harm, Captain’ or ‘While there appears to be no logical reason for this course of action to work, past history suggests you will be successful.’

Sulu’s question draws Jim out of his reflection. “Any reason for your question, Captain?”

“Not really,” Jim says, picking up his PADD again. “It just seems curious that everything we found was from earth. The world was weird as anything, but everything was earth-influenced.”

“Maybe because it was familiar to her? To the girl, I mean,” Sulu says and then falls silent. They’ve had a rule, unspoken and informal and strictly enforced, about not mentioning the girl who imagined the world they were a part of.

Jim breaks the silence after a few minutes. “Or from the stories themselves. Anything’s possible.” 

“Indeed,” Spock comments and pauses. “You were aware of the orchestrated end of the story from the beginning, then?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve never read _the Snow Queen_ or much of anything by Hans Christian Anderson. But it’s a fairy tale, so I banked on happy-ever-after.”

“A more modern invention of the genre. Most traditional fairy tales had rather grim endings by conventional definitions.”

“Come on, Spock, it’s a kid’s story. How grim could it get?”

And then, of course, Spock begins to give him examples. “In the original French version of Red Riding Hood by Perrault, the wolf kills the grandmother and fools the young girl into eating her grandmother’s flesh and drinking her blood as wine. Finally Red Riding Hood is killed and eaten herself by the wolf, which is where the story ends.”

“Which is amazingly horrific and I don’t think I want to know why you know that, Spock,” he says but continues to press his original point. “However, that is only one example and - ”

“The Baba Yaga of traditional Russian tales flies through the sky in her mortar and pestle and collects men’s skulls to light the fence of her chicken leg house,” Chekov chimes in, hesitant at first, though he hits his stride as soon as he mentions Russia.

Sulu nods at him before adding his own example. “One of the weirder examples might be the Penanggalan, who pretends to be a normal woman during the day but flies around as a head-and-entrails monster during the night to attack and eat people.”

Uhura’s nodding at all of this, and Jim’s just surprised it’s taken a year and a half for him to find out his crew is crazy. “It’s fairly universal – the Penanggalan sounds similar to the Japanese Rokurokubi, for example. There is a precedent where many original fairytales include grotesque elements. In the original Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson, every time the Mermaid walked it was as painful as stepping on glass. And in the end, the prince marries another woman and she - ”

“Fine, fine,” Jim cuts them all off. “We got lucky and there was clearly only one happy ending to be found in the fairy tale horrorshow. Let’s just be glad it was ours.”

The crew isn’t finished. “You should consider some of the archetypal Greek myths if you want the full effect, Captain,” Uhura says, and Spock begins to detail some of Vulcan’s myths and fairy tales. Jim would have thought that Vulcans would consider that sort of nonsense illogical, but clearly not.

All in all, it’s a relief when Scotty asks if he can spare the time to meet him in Engineering.

-

Half of Scotty’s proposed upgrades are brilliant and the other half might get them blown up. It’s what he’s come to expect from the man. 

“Check the numbers, Scotty,” Jim insists.

“I’ve checked the numbers more than once, Captain. It’s not something we can do at warp, of course, but once we’re at a dock somewhere - ”

Jim shakes his head, cutting Scotty off. “We won’t be docked long enough for these sorts of repairs and upgrades for at least another two months, Scotty. It’s also when we’ll be on shore leave. Technically, I can’t stop you from spending all your shore leave on the ship, although Bones might.”

Scotty doesn’t concede the point, but he does defer for the moment. “Fine, Captain. We put aside that possible upgrade, and I’ll run the math of it past both Mister Chekov and Commander Spock, alright?”

He grins and flips through the other upgrades, the ones that are slightly less ambitious and thus something they could possibly accomplish during warp. “Thank you, Scotty. It’s always a good day when we don’t get blown up.”

“Blasphemy, Captain. I’d never do anything to get my girl blown up.” He runs a soothing hand down the nearest piece of the ship he can reach, muttering reassurances under his breath before turning back to Jim. 

“There is one bit Gaila and I were looking at, not really changing much save shifting how we’re recycling some of our resources. It’s a keen idea but she had the specs for it.” He taps his communicator. 

“Gaila? Would you come to main engineering?”

There’s no answer over the communicator; instead, the response comes from directly behind them.

“You could have just shouted. I was tangled up in the wiring and caught halfway up a Jeffries tube but not really that far away.” She’s got a smudge of grease along one cheekbone and her red hair’s a tangle about her face. When she sees Jim, her smile is bold and bright.

“Captain! Scotty’s trying to blow up the _Enterprise_ even though he doesn’t mean to. You shouldn’t let him.” Her hands are clasped behind her back and she almost skips forward to join them.

“Gaila, I would do no such thing.”

“You wouldn’t mean to, but you might anyway. She’s a nice ship. You shouldn’t blow her up, particularly as you’d also blow up all of us.”

Jim brings up the specifications for one of the more feasible of Scotty’s plans. “I, for one, would yell at you a lot in the few seconds before we blew up.”

That sets Scotty off and the three of them debate the particulars of just what will or will not blow up the _Enterprise_ until Gaila, squinting over an engineering readout on a PADD, says something that makes them stop.

“You know, I think we had a machine that would have fixed this. You know, back there in impossible world.” She looks up at them, meets their gaze. “And the snow. I almost miss the snow. It was cold and – well, _cold_ \- but it was beautiful.”

Scotty glances down at the blueprint himself before speaking.. “It was cold – too damn cold. I can’t miss that, but I’ll agree with you on the first part. I _do_ miss some of those crazy trinkets. Even if they weren’t real, they did some fantastic things. Like the iron pipe with - ”

“ – the two bits at the end? And how it never lost any energy to heat? That was impressive. Impossible – but impressive.”

All around them the great machine heart of the _Enterprise_ thrums and hisses and beats to a rhythm they set their lives by. Jim wouldn’t trade her for any world, but he can understand their sentiments, the longing for something that wasn’t bound by the laws they know.

“You managed to circumvent entropy? Congratulations. If we weren’t all on shift I’d recommend we get drunk.”

“I wish we could,” Gaila groans. “I also wish I still had the damn corset. My boobs looked _fantastic_ in it.”

There’s a strained pause, and then Scotty pats her back hesitantly. “There, there, lass. Your…well, you’re always fantastic. And I say that in a strictly non-sexual harassment sort of way, please and thank you.”

“That was very sweet of you, Scotty,” Gaila says and presses a quick kiss to the side of his cheek.

Jim just shakes his head. God, his crew is weird.

-

At night, every night, he reads through her book.

_Of course his sweetheart was also a crow, for crows seek their equals, and they are always crows._

Seven, he thinks, for a secret never to be told. 

-

“Unless you're injured, go away,” Bones says by way of greeting when Jim walks through the doors of sickbay. Jim clutches his chest and staggers slightly.

“I'm injured now, Bones. You wound me deeply. And here I only wanted to send some quality time with you.”

Bones gifts him with one of his best glares. “God help me. You want to _talk_ , don’t you?”

The grin Jim throws Bones is reckless and edged, a little bit like sharp glass. 

“Come on. We're recovering from a traumatic event - ” 

Whatever slack Bones had cut him in the past, it's clearly slack he's not willing to give Jim anymore. “Before you start, I want to make something perfectly clear.” He wishes Bones had put down the hypospray before he started gesticulating. It makes talking to him a dangerous sport.

“Parameters are fine. I can handle parameters.”

“Good. I am done considering our adventures in crazytown. Thus, we are not discussing our adventures in crazytown. We can discuss anything else but not that – or _that_ \- and you know exactly what I mean.”

He does, and Bones continues. “So, considering those parameters, pick a topic.”

There is something Jim wants to know. “Tell me what you were like at eight.” 

Bones stares at him and then pours them both a new drink, from the good bottle that he hides in the bottom left drawer of his desk. His accent thickens a bit when he begins to talk, and Jim lets the story wash over him.

McCoy tells him about the sunlight in Georgia, the wide fields and the way the air was thick and still during the summers, pregnant with heat and waiting for a storm.

-

They don’t talk, except on the bridge. They don’t play chess, they don’t talk, and Jim didn’t know he could miss something so badly, something he never even got to have properly the first time around.

He didn’t even get to fuck it up all on his own, and everyday the tension between them builds. 

It’s not fair, but if he knows anything he knows that his life has never been one for fair.

-

It's been almost a month after the whole madhouse of winter fun happened, and Jim’s about ready to kill himself or Spock, assuming the crew doesn’t put them both out of their misery first.

He can’t think of any way to fix this, not when Spock won’t even speak with him. They almost had a conversation today: Jim can remember it in its entirety. It's not because he's brilliant or gifted with a fantastic memory; it's because it was so _short_. 

He recreates it in his mind, telling Spock that Starfleet had asked for additional information regarding the incident, a follow-up to Jim's initial report. Perspective pieces, from the crew members. Especially bridge crew and wouldn't Spock be happy to know that he was the first on the list and - 

And Spock had almost cut him off, words clipped as he'd replied that he'd look at the report as soon as he was free. Captain. 

Always captain, and Jim never thought he'd have cause to hate that word before, not after everything he did to get and keep it.

Life is full of surprises. Unfortunately, most of his tend to suck. He trails one hand along the soft spine of her book and opens it, running through the familiar words and lines – 

_“You’re so clever,” said the reindeer. “I know that you can tie up all the winds of the earth with a thread.”_

The talking reindeer has all of the answers, it seems, and he has none. Though he probably shouldn’t be reading too much into a story where divining messages in bits of fish was a legitimate strategy for getting advice. 

He, on the other hand, is playing himself in a game of chess, for lack of other company, and it’s not going well. Apparently, he can’t even manage to beat himself in a game of chess, he thinks, though technically, he _is_ winning. From another point of view, he’s also losing.

From another point of view, he’s playing himself in a game of chess, which is bordering on pathetic.

“Come,” Jim calls out in answer to the chime at his door. The panel slides back and Spock steps through, standing like a sentinel in the middle of the room.

He swallows against the dryness of his throat, forcing down the knot of something that might be panic or fear. “What can I do for you, Spock?” His voice is impressively steady.

“I would like to speak with you regarding my report on the recent events on Delta-IV.”

Jim’s hand pulls a bit as he drags it through his hair, and the slight pain goes a long way to centering him. “Is it horribly awkward conversation time already? I haven’t checked my watch recently.”

“Captain.” Spock doesn’t say anything more than that, but he’s serious about this. Jim supposes the least he can do is manage the same.

“Fine, Spock. Permission to speak freely and candidly, not that you’d ever need it. Anything in particular about Delta-IV?”

“I would like to clarify the events surrounding our final actions on Delta-IV.”

That throws him for a moment. He'd expected to be the one doing the explaining.

“Certainly, Spock. Go ahead.”

Spock wastes no time. “I shot her.”

He tries, but no matter how he parses that, it doesn't make sense.

“What?”

“The Snow Queen,” Spock continues. “During the final events at Evigheden, you were only able to deliver two shots before being incapacitated. She showed no signs of ceasing in her assault on you, and I was closest to the weapon.”

Spock doesn't fidget – Jim doesn't think he even knows _how_ \- but he's as nervous as he's ever seen him.

“Head, heart, hope.”

“Precisely.”

Jim sighs and resists the urge for a more emphatic method of expressing himself. “Which means what exactly, anyway? I got the head and heart bit easy enough, but what, exactly, did you even shoot?”

Spock's voice is precise and methodical, as if describing anything but the way he delivered the attack that destroyed someone's dream. A child's dream of a different place.

“There was one statue in the hall that remained intact despite the violent shattering of the rest. Upon closer examination, it appeared to be a statue of a young girl and her family.”

Things piece together. “Her hope. It was what she wanted.”

Spock considers him for a long moment. “Precisely. It was her dream, and I shot it.”

Spock falls silent after that, and Jim lets his gaze drift away from him, wandering to the sight of stars streaking past the view his room offers him.

“Thank you,” he says, and when he speaks he remembers what it was to sound like this, to talk to Spock as to a friend. “For telling me, I mean. Thanks.”

He hears the soft sound of Spock setting his PADD down on Jim's desk. His job's done, and he'll leave now. The only reason he came to Jim's room in the first place is on matters of ship business. With that completed, he has no reason to stay.

That Jim doesn't look at Spock, doesn't watch him as he's about to leave, is out of selfishness and not of cowardice. He's allowed to want things, and he thinks that, given everything, he's been pretty good about this whole clusterfuck of events. So if he doesn't watch Spock walk away, that's fine. He can let himself have that.

There's another soft noise, and it isn't the sound of his door sliding open and shut. Startled, he turns to see Spock idly moving the chess pieces of his half-heartened game.

“Your opponent is not a terribly skilled one. Have you been playing Doctor McCoy?”

“Not exactly.” Jim moves to the other side of the board. “Just mapping out moves with myself mostly.”

Spock tilts his head, considering the pieces with a renewed interest. “You would always win such a match.”

“Or I'd always lose. I'll let you know if there's anything I need you to clarify in your report, Commander,” Jim says, and the title is as much of a dismissal as he's ever directed at the Vulcan, but Spock doesn't move.

“May I ask you a question concerning the events of Delta-IV?”

God, he's tired. 

“By all means, Spock.”

Spock doesn’t waste time. “I wish to speak about the relationship that existed between us during that event. Specifically, clarification on the basis for such a relationship.”

It’s strange, because he’s prepared for this moment. He even practiced what he would say when one of them finally brought up the issue and all of _its_ issues. He didn’t rehearse, didn’t stand in front of a mirror or anything equally insipid, but he did prepare for it.

Hearing the almost-question and everything it means still feels like getting punched in the gut, forces him to fight for enough air to speak.

“Look Spock, it isn’t anything you need to concern yourself with. Our relationship remains professional, the world just needed to give me some support, I suppose, of a closer variety than just friendship. The world did what it had to.”

Spock is considering him carefully, as if Jim were a particularly interesting puzzle. If he didn’t know better, Jim would think his first officer found all this amusing, somehow.

“Are you then stating there were no preexisting emotions on your part?” 

He could lie. He doesn’t – he _won’t_ \- but he could.

“No, Spock, I’m not saying that.”

He wishes Spock would give him some sort of reaction to go off of. It would be easier to deal with his rejection, logical and detached, than his hate, but at least Jim would know. 

More than anything else, he’s always been brave. Stubborn to the point of pigheaded, and brave to the point of reckless. For good or for terrible, fucked-up ill, those traits are his, have been his, and he won’t give them up. He wouldn’t do it then, and he’s not going to now. 

Stepping forward, he gets close enough to force Spock to look directly in his eyes. There’s a rushing in his ears and this all feels a bit like flying or falling and he doesn’t think about what’ll happen when he hits the ground.

“No, Spock. What I’m saying might as well be in fucking Delta Quadrant, compared to that. I’ve had ‘preexisting emotions’ about you for over the last year. But those are my feelings and my own concern. The world probably took a cue from them, but…” Jim trails off and glances away for the first time.

“…But we’re not there anymore.” 

His final words are soft, and then he waits.

Jim doesn’t know what reaction he was expecting, but it’s certainly not what he gets. 

“You have a remarkably self-centered perspective on the recent events,” Spock says. His voice is soft but the words sting all the same and Jim bristles. 

“I didn’t ask for any of that to happen and I did more than my best to keep anything from happening once I’d figured it out. Regardless of your opinion of me, I am well aware of what does and does _not_ define ‘informed consent.’

His anger batters against Spock, who stands unmoved and firm in the face of it. “You misunderstand me. It was not intended as an insult, merely an observation. While cast into the necessary roles, the crew members maintained the intrinsic elements of their personalities. I would ask that you accord me the same consideration.”

His voice is clear and even, weighted with everything he’s not saying, and he’s not done yet.

“You were not the only one,” Spock says, quiet and sure, “who, when presented with something thought impossible, was concerned over issues of consent.” 

The words are staggering. Jim drops onto the edge of his bed, braces his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “You’re kind of a jerk, you know that?” he mutters, fighting back tired laughter.

“Jim?” Not Captain. Jim. God, but he missed that.

He drags his face out of his hands. For a moment he understands the appeal of the Vulcan mentality: emotions are a bitch.

“Just – you couldn’t have led with that a few weeks ago? So I wouldn’t have wondered when the ‘your inappropriate conduct has highlighted my own distaste for you’ or whatever the Vulcan version of ‘I hated that and you’ was coming.”

Spock kneels in front of him, his hands gentle as he moves Jim’s hands away until he’s forced to look at him.

“You are a complex and thoroughly confusing individual, but I do not believe that I could ever be capable of hating you.”

He can’t find the words to answer that, but he doesn’t have to, lacing his fingers through Spock’s and pulling him forward onto the bed. 

-

Jim wakes up enveloped in warmth, the lean length of another body pressed up against his back. And best of all, he’s exactly where he belongs.

Spock stretches against him, shifting slightly in his sleep. It’s familiar and brand-new; he’s woken up this way several times and it’s never happened before, not like this.

Turning slowly, he manages to shift until he’s facing Spock, until he can watch him as he sleeps, the slow inhale and exhale of each breath, can catalogue each feature. 

Looking isn’t nearly enough to satisfy him, though, and he reaches in, fits his lips to the line of Spock’s neck and kisses him, edging his way down with a touch of tongue and teeth, digging into the smooth skin of his neck.

He knows Spock’s woken up when the arm around him tightens, pulling him closer.

“Jim,” Spock breathes, and _shifts,_ moving until he’s above Jim, arching, pressing down until they form one unbroken line of skin-on-skin. Jim’s hips shift against Spock’s, circling restlessly, and he takes the resultant hitch in Spock’s breathing as the best kind of victory.

Strong hands press against his shoulders, which is just hot. He tries to move, but Spock’s a solid weight.

A solid, unmoving weight staring at the time.

“Come on - it’s gamma shift. Tell me you’re not on duty.”

Spock slides off of him until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. “That would be lying, Jim.”

Jim doesn’t think he could fight the desire to touch Spock right now, and he doesn’t bother trying, just runs one hand down the length of his back, counting the ridges of his spine. He counts up to seven and doesn't think of anything except the feel of Spock, bone, muscle and skin, firm and solid architecture beneath his hand.

“Fuck,” he mutters and Spock turns his head to regard him, wearing the barest edge of a smile.

Standing, Spock gathers his clothes and begins to dress. “Unfortunately, that would not be possible at present.”

Settling against the bed, Jim enjoys the view. He can appreciate the aesthetic of just about any variation of Spock, but there’s something amazing about the way that black undershirt clings to his chest.

“Actually, hang on a second before you put that on.” Spock halts at the comment, obeying the half-command. It’s unexpected and fucking awesome, because he halts halfway through putting on his blue uniform shirt, and thus Jim is treated to another show as he slowly lowers his arms. 

It doesn’t take long for Spock to catch on, and the Vulcan lets loose with something like a sigh. “Are you enjoying yourself, Jim?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Spock finishes pulling on his shirt and walks over to Jim. 

“I have some idea.”

Jim proceeds to show him that he really, really doesn’t.

-

Things settle back into a shape Jim recognizes.

They play chess, although Spock never lets Jim get away with promoting a pawn to queen again. It’s alright; Jim’s worked out interesting ways to distract Spock. It does mean that they always end up playing chess in one of their rooms and sometimes they don’t finish the games.

Some things are different, though. Some things will stay different, like the roses Sulu’s started growing in the botany lab, or Chekov’s new fondness for old maps, or the singsong cadence he hears from time to time in their speech.

Or the look in Spock’s eyes when he holds the book in his hands, remembering another place and the strange silence of falling snow, windows of thick glass and the soft slant of light. 

He takes the book from his hands and leads Spock to the bed. They settle on it, half-sitting against the wall, knees knocking against each other’s as Jim opens to the marked page.

“In the big city,” he begins, “where there are so many buildings and people…”

Spock watches him as he reads, dark eyes so intent that Jim thinks he would stumble over the words if he knew them less well. But he’s read this tale so many times, picked through this book over and over for hints of the stories he saw in that place. He knows this story too well to trip over it.

There’s a story he really wants to tell Spock, and maybe he will one day. It’s about a boy who lost his father and grew up reckless and headstrong under the shadow of that sacrifice. About his childhood and the haphazard, drifting years. The adventures he had, the people he’s known and loved, and all the journeys that led him here. 

He could talk about it, about the strange set of circumstance, chance and destiny that made them this. But then again, Spock already knows how most of it goes.

Jim lets his shoulder rest against Spock’s, relaxes against the solid warmth of him.

And it was summer, he thinks. Warm, blissful summer.

-


End file.
